Scions of the Storm
by ShadowGuard23
Summary: The storm was the beginning. Now the pursuit of the most dangerous woman in the Western hemisphere begins, as Max and Chloe must discover the truth behind the hellish tornado that destroyed Arcadia Bay, all the while evading merciless hunters, a mad cult, and demons of the past. Set following the Sacrifice Arcadia Bay Ending, with a Science Fiction addition.
1. The Trail

_A Note from the author: As usual, before we get started, be advised this is not your usual story. This should technically be in a cross-over section, save for the fact there is no official universe to put this under. The Guard are an original collective of characters, but I do not take credit for any of the figures featured within Life is Strange; that's Dontnod's and I thank them for such a great experience. Taking place after the Sacrifice Arcadia Bay ending, I warn you that there will be a band of marauding aliens, a psychopathic cult, and a further exploration of Max's powers that may extend past the cannon, though I will try to keep the whole affair as grounded as possible. On a final note, I really appreciate constructive feedback, so if you have a moment, drop a review! So, with all that out of the way, then let us commence on the journey._

* * *

'Blunt force, blunt force, head trauma, missing three limbs, rebar through chest, and nothing in the damn pocket. Maybe his boot?'

Praesentius was talking to himself, again, though if he had anything of significant value that his commanding officer would find of interest, Emendus did not know. In fact, he greatly doubted that would be the case, as he turned back to the mayhem before him.

Claudius and Erenus were engaging in some strange tug of war with a series of painted, splintered logs, whilst Regenus had apparently taken some strange fixation with a nearby fire that seemed to border on the ambition of self immolation. Meanwhile, across the road, Maudus was digging through the mud with his hands, although how he intended to produce a grave large enough to bury all the dead was beyond Emendus, and Thax was being Thax; in other words, doing nothing. Meanwhile, the rain continued to beat down on his scarred forehead with unceasing disregard for his well being, filling his steel boots to the brim with the polluted crap of a planet he had already learned to detest with all his heart.

All in all, it would not be remembered as one of Ememdus' finest days on the Watch, as he pulled himself out of the mire he had wisely chosen to elect as his post for the past ten minutes, and trampled over to his lead Hunter, hoping beyond hope that there was a trail to be found.

'Anything new, Praesentius?'

'When I find something worth a memory, I'll let you know…'

'I was talking about a lead, Guardsman. In fact, while we're on the topic, how many blithering times have I told you to respect the damn Fallen!'

'You're not a Shadow anymore, Emendus,' the Hunter fired back in an easy tone, 'just another one of the forsaken. So lighten up; this is probably the most interesting crap we'll be thrown in the next couple of decades. You don't need to make it any more of a headache than it already is, you know what I'm saying?'

Emendus was not sure if he was going to log that down as insubordination. Praesentius, aside from having one of the most unforgivable names known to his untrained tongue, was a solid Guardsman, but Orteus' psyche evaluations of the former member of the Hell Guard had still advised a degree of caution; he commonly walked the line between a self proclaimed comedic irritant, and an intolerable nuisance all too often with intent, and Emendus was uncertain as to how much leeway he was to extend to the soldier. Considering his own admitted sin of pride, he was at a loss as to how much of the strange animosity between the two was his responsibility, and how much lay at the little shit's feet.

And then there was the fact he was toying with what appeared to be a severed finger, twirling it between his hands like the blade that would so often occupy them.

'Put it down, Praesentius.'

'Fine, fine,' he conceded, dropping the digit once more, strangely obedient as soon as the command had left his superior's mouth, 'Great Father, it is a bloody mess, isn't it?'

'You tell me,' Emendus sighed, surveying the carnage once again. He had seen battlefields, although not many, that appeared tidier than the pile of scrap that, composed the remains of Arcadia Bay.

To call it a bay anymore should have been considered an insult to any other retreat of the coastline; the storm had all but obliterated the seafront, and floodwaters still remained, caught in depressions or the ruins of the homes they had destroyed, and unable to withdraw, so they remained amid the dead; a breeding ground for the growths and organisms that would slowly devour the victims of day. Both above and beneath the ground would hold no sanctuary from the degradation offered by time, and someday, though Emendus knew that day to be far off, naught would remain of the fallen; each a victim of nature's fury.

Save for one.

'You finished back there yet, Adrentius?'

A mumble met his ears, and the Guardsman turned about, leveling his eyes upon the last member of his small warband with a vengeance, much to the great discomfort of the latter.

Adrentius was by far the youngest of his little company of misfits; fresh from the trials, with an overeagerness to impress, and with all four limbs still attached. Everything Emendus hated. Mostly because he saw himself, as the new blood recoiled at his sudden aggression.

'It was a ritualistic killing,' the Hunter spat out in a torrent, his horror at his superior's loathing evident within his every word, 'one, um, extensive wound across the entire body, all inflicted by the same bladed weapon. Burn marks, and…'

'Yes, yes, yes, I don't envy the bastard. What I want to know is where the hell he gets us!'

For the first time, the new blood's usual imagination failed to fire, and with an irritated wave of a gauntleted hand, Emendus signalled for Praesentius to take over. In all truth, Emendus thought to himself, he probably should have given the recruit a better chance: it was just one of the reasons he had in fact seen fit to drag the least experienced of his little rabble along this once, for the hard truth was that Death was a fickle master. On a good day, he'd take someone far off from one's life; undoubtedly a tragedy to countless others, but a sadistic blessing to his own company. On the average operation, he'd pluck the incompetent. But on the occasion the lord of the end thirsted for one of his finest, well, Emendus needed a replacement who would be able to get several paces without tripping up.

At this rate, at least, he found himself hoping Death could wait another day. Or an eternity.

On the other hand, he noted to himself, as he checked the chronometer plastered upon his helmet's display, they were still working on a clock, as the rescue teams closed in.

'Ritualized killing,' Praesentius repeated to himself, gently guiding the youth aside, 'ritualized killing, but with the same blade...lone instigator, perhaps? And in that bloody housing estate too; place wasn't open for hire, so I'm guessing I could point a finger at the owner.'

'Just tell me if it's what I think it is,' Emendus broke in, 'we're on a clock.'

'Circular wounds, all of them unbroken in nature; from the look of things, those widened serrations look like they left the knife in the fella when they got tired. Talk about continuity, eh? Ah, and the burn marks; did it not surprise you that they were where his eyeballs are meant to be, you idiot?'

'Why the blinding?'

'Meant to be some pathway to the soul, or some shit,' Praesentius muttered, hardly listening, 'and the palms as well. Fate, fate, and Great Father be praised, fate!'

'I don't mean to intrude,' an irritated voice crackled over Emendus' earpiece, 'but first responders are less than five minutes out. I'd recommend double timing it unless you want Taurus to jam a boot through your arse for blowing this operation.'

'Copy that, Regus. You hear that, Praesentius? You got five minutes.'

'Then we're five minutes early; it's them.'

'No doubt?'

'Obsession with time, continuity, and fate. Plus the ritualised massacre sitting before you, and yes, I'd be pretty certain it was them.'

'Which leaves us with what?'

Though Emendus could not see it, he could certainly tell Praesentius was chewing his lip, again. The helmet they each wore restricted such a sight of each warrior's face, but there were habbits each held; the little nuances that could betray the steel statues to the careful eye. Praesentius', it seemed, was the destruction of the upper portion of his excessively sized mouth.

'Finally allowed to die around minutes before the storm hit, yet I don't see the weapon. Our cultist must have taken it with him, which puts his departure time from this hell hole exactly half an hour ahead of us. And considering he'd be hightailing it with a monster on his tail, he'd take the fastest route out.'

'The east road?'

'Yep, headed towards the I-5. But,' he held out a hand, admonishing Emendus in a manner of condescension he detested, 'but, but, but, but; if it was them, why here?'

'Great Father,' Emendus finally snapped, 'I don't know, Praesentius; I'm not a blasted Hunter, am I? You want to tell me what I'm missing?'

'A little, let us say, touch dramatic, isn't it? Summoning a storm all the way out here, of such a magnitude? There has to be a reason, and the only one I can think of is that there's another out here.'

'Timekeeper?'

'Definately something of the sort. Otherwise, it seems a bit of a wasted endeavor, for a bunch of pragmatic psychopaths, at least, doesn't it? Find the motive, find the motive, and all shall be revealed.'

Emendus bit back on another barbed comment coiling itself upon the tip of his tongue. Arrogant or not, he was willing to trust the vast majority of Praesentius' judgements; although perhaps too many relied a tad too much on speculation, sometimes, one had to make do with horrible hand, and still walk away with something in their pocket, and Praesentius seemed to have a knack for such. So, while it was entirely tempting to throw him back into his place, he also could not risk turning the predator into an indignant ass who would refuse to aid his work until he extracted an apology. It was all quite a dissatisfactory position Emendus found himself in, and any living soul that knew him would have known he was counting the days until he could be rotated back away from the forsaken little outpost known as Earth.

'So,' Emendus muttered, barely at a whisper's volume, 'for the last time, where would that take us?'

'He'd have survived the storm; no question, provided he knew about his capabilities. The cult doesn't pick these behemoths for their destructive power, 'cause if they wanted to kill the twit, they'd have just planted a bomb on his doorstep. No, they wanted something big; that their prey would have seen, and known how to survive. To separate 'em from the rest of the herd, and leave him broken and defenseless.'

'Why a 'he'?' Claudius put in, much to Praesentius' chagrin. 'could be a 'she'.'

'As it might be a 'he'.'

'And I'll wager it's an old wrinkly with a shotgun in his basement,' the Hunter returned with even vehemence, until Emendus cut him off; a decision few of them regretted, if one ignored the fact he might have simply instigated it a few moments earlier, and saved their ears.

'Praesentius,' he snapped, 'I know you don't like the opposite gender. In fact, you've iterated that so much we're all very well informed about your little incident with Arcadia, so save it! Unless I have any of it wrong; we have one murderous son of a bitch on the loose, a possible Timekeeper,' he paused, seeing Praesentius draw breath to argue once again, and sped up the pace, 'who's gender will not remain the subject of debate for another bleating second! And with a nearly thirty minute head start on us.'

Praesentius seemed satisfied; at least, as satisfied as he could have been after a reminder of that one time he had pushed his luck too far with a female who did not reciprocate his rather forthright advances, and who had been armed with a rather sharp blade. So did every other present, and for once, Emendus found himself able to appreciate the assembly of renegades he had before him. Certainly, they talked far more than he was comfortable with, and by the Great Father, sometimes he was tempted to bury a few of them just to save his hearing, but at the very heart of each soul lay a unfeeling murderer he was glad to have at his side. Sometimes, he could not help but wonder if the disturbingly joyous outlooks some of them adopted simply served as acclimatization to the constant hunt, but it did not matter.

They had a task, they had the massacred population of a small coastal town for a reason, and they had enough weapons to take on a small army.

Perhaps, he allowed himself to ponder; perhaps it would be a good day.


	2. The Road Home

Night seemed to fall earlier than normal. Of course, after a horrendous week that seemed more of an eternity in purgatory than the freedom one might have imagined to come with the capacity to avert disaster, Max could no longer differentiate what one might have classified as 'normal'. After an unscheduled snowfall, a total eclipse and two moons battling overhead for their rightful place in the skies, if one did not stop to include the apparently unanimous decision of every animal in the Arcadia Bay area to simply drop dead at the same moment in time, an early evening could have almost been mistaken for a little gift amidst all the shit that had been piled upon her doorstep, as they headed east, away from the carnage in her wake.

Ignorance truly was a bliss, she decided, as she slumped back into the seat, with her mind still a different world away, within a picture that had ceased to be.

An accident, she could live with. By now, she had probably made more mistakes than any other person on the planet, even without the capacity to undergo its failure, only to rewind, and suffer another. But an accident was still, as it suggested, an accident. An unintended error one neither welcomed nor wished for.

And now she had been handed a choice, knowing the hands beneath each deck, and still lost.

'Hey? You hanging in there?'

With some discomfort, Max realised Chloe had been speaking to her for some time, hardly realising that her words had been passing over deaf ears.

'Yeah,' she tried, already sensing the disbelief in her friend's eyes as she struggled to avoid them, 'just, well…'

She tailed off, and Chloe did not press her. No more words were necessary. At least, no words that would alleviate the situation at hand; in fact, any only seemed to have the potential to set alight the well tindered disaster in their wake, turning the tragedy into the final inferno that would consume the only good she had salvaged from the massacre.

Frankly, Max did not know how she had evaded Chloe's rage for the extent of time that had already elapsed since they had departed the hole that was Arcadia Bay. Then again, she had already rewound once to stop Chloe from taking the fateful path back to the dinner; the first time had only ended in dismay and despair when they had found Joyce's body, alongside countless others, but she knew that she was only putting off that awful moment when Chloe's grief would finally burst through the hardened shell she projected to the world; a shell only a few had been privy to pass.

If it was not today, it would be the day after the next, and even if she found the right combination of words to stall the inevitable, after goodness knew how many rewinds, it would still lie beneath the surface; a time bomb waiting to erupt the fire of her own personal hell.

Even so, Max had yet to find the courage to burst the bubble just yet. Certainly, she saw it as a band aid that would only have to come away from the wound sooner or later, but was she about to actively tear it off, knowing the full volatility of Chloe Elizabeth Price?

Jumping into a meat grinder would have probably held better appeal.

'You want to get something to eat?' Chloe asked abruptly, in a tone that was far harsher than her typical voice which could already fluctuate from that of a carefree punk, to the oppressed martyr.

'I'm alright,' Max replied.

Chloe spared her a glance; it's length was sufficient to alert Max that she'd made the wrong choice.

'I could eat something,' the blue haired teenager sighed, already spinning the wheel in the direction of a dinner that lay tucked beneath the pines, 'plus, if I go any further without some coffee, I might just fuck everything up.'

Max refrained from replying. When Chloe had made up her mind, there was usually little that could be done to dissuade her.

* * *

They left the battered truck where it lay; at an angle so slanted that it was all but impossible to determine which of the three spaces Chloe had aimed to park in, before heading into the establishment, their heads tucked low in shame that no observer could hope to understand. It was not every day one encountered a pair despondent girls who believed they were the principal cause of a town's destruction at the hands of a natural, albeit horrible, event. At best, it would be chalked up to survivor's guilt; at it's worst, which was all Max could consider at the present moment, it might have heralded grounds for psychiatric containment.

The dinner itself was a sparsely decorated joint, lacking the spirit of The Two Whales, though not in a cosmetic sense, for more than a few photos were plastered upon the walls; each of evident value to a particular patron or owner of the establishment, but their appeal was all but wasted on Max, who saw only empty faces. Empty faces with too many smiles, a distinct absence of artistic direction, and most importantly, an emptiness in her mind. She knew nor felt nothing to each individual detailed upon the framed portraits, just as she could have never hoped to know every victim of her decision. But like Chloe, they were each held close to at least one heart. Just not her's, and most certainly not one that wove each of their fates upon the palm of one's hand.

The lone man behind the bar was even less accommodating for the survivors of the Bay; evidently at the end of a long day of hell, his disregard for the pair was contort across his face, as he tossed a pair of menus in their direction, before heading back to his station to accommodate a rather burly trucker whose supply of coin had yet to expire, as he ordered another round of liquid courage. Or amnesia, judging from the way he was swaying to and fro upon a chair that looked to be on the verge of giving way at any one moment.

With an abrupt start, Max realised Chloe's hand was upon her own, and she belatedly ducked her head back down to the menu, before the well built figure could challenge her for staring.

'You want a beer?' Chloe offered hazily, 'it helps. At times.'

She had waved the bartender over before Max had even opened her mouth to respond, but by the time Chloe had relayed her request, the man's look of disinterest had shifted to one of hostility.

'Not for minors,' he answered curtly, drawing a scowl across Chloe's features.

'What the fuck are you talking about?' Chloe snapped with far more vehemence than that which was typically required for a confrontation over a drink, 'I bet I could outlast you in a couple of rounds.'

'You have an ID?'

'Is it necessary?' But the man would not have any more of it.

'No's no. Hurry up and make your order. Water's on the menu, if that takes your fancy, but no alcohol. I ain't getting charged for selling crap to someone underage.'

'Do I look underage?'

A shrug. 'Your friend does.'

Max did not appreciate the scrutiny Chloe turned upon her in the moment that followed: it was a fleeting, instinctive twist of the head, yet what she found clearly left her wanting, at least for the argument she was trying to pose. Max's deceptively youthful face was not exactly the best evidence the blue haired rebel could have drawn upon for an excuse to forget the tornado with a little help from a bottle, and with the bartender refusing to budge, she promptly surrendered.

But, as Chloe always was, it was never a quiet one, as she reached into her pocket, produced a depleted pack of cigarettes, and pinned one against her lips.

'What?' She barked tersely, 'there ain't no law against underage smoking, and I sure as shit don't see a sign around here.'

This time, it was the man who bit back a retort. And with her victory secured, Chloe fell back into the sofa, closing her eyes in a vain effort to clear the swirling turmoil beneath the mop of dyed hair atop her scalp.

After ordering a pair of omelettes, for both her stubbornly aggressive friend and her own stomach, Max found herself alone once more, free to contemplate the lives she had just condemned to the void of existence. To wander amidst the faces that swam up from memory she could only hope to repress, before the barrier broke and they invaded her life once more, leaving the dinner awash with the blood she had drained from their mortal vessels.

Needless to say, it was a dream she did not wish to revel in for too long.

'Hey, what the hell dude?' Chloe was already protesting, before Max placed a finger to her own mouth, silencing her friend as she plucked the cigarette from Chloe, weighed it in her palm for the briefest of moments, and turned it about to avoid scorching her own throat.

'Hey,' Chloe sighed, finally understanding that her friend was not about to attempt to wean her off one of her last unhealthy comforts, 'have you even had one before?'

'It's been a day of firsts,' Max returned in an even tone, before she placed it to her lips, inhaled a breath, and promptly erupted into a fit of hacking and wheezing.

'No kidding,' she heard Chloe exclaim, 'hell, I'm kinda glad you don't smoke pot now. David would have-'

She stopped, uncertain of where to continue from there. She had almost never called him by his name. It was always either 'step-douche', or 'step-dick', 'prick' or simply 'fucker'; never was it David Madsen. Though it was all but a distant, clouded image in Max's mind after her final trip through the strands of fate, the veteran had shown a different side of himself over the last day of his life; one that Chloe could still remember as clear as day. It was the first time she had seen him smile. A proper one that is; one that was not a forced frame chiseled over his mouth for some public event; the triumph as he had emerged from the madhouse was in it's purest form, and after their own little dabbling in the work of a snoop, Chloe had finally understood the euphoria that her step-father had hunted for so long. That indescribable sensation of joy as the final nail in the villain's coffin was hammered through age-old wood; the vindication of all one's suspicions, where all others had perceived naught but smiles and ideals, labeling the watchful as a pariah. She had endured that search for only a few days; he had hunted it for almost six months, and the alleviation of the burden continued to plague her every thought. It was the first time she had seen David capable of displaying the love beneath the warrior's stature he had built for himself; the first time she had seen her mother content in his embrace, entirely unaware that Joyce had in fact never allowed the hunt for the truth to obstruct her own happiness in her marriage. But for Chloe at least, it had seemed the first, and so it was only natural for that memory to cut all the deeper, in the knowledge that they had naught but a day to enjoy it.

'Do you think,' she stammered, catching Max's eye, 'any of them made it out?'

Immediately, she regretted opening her mouth as she saw Max crumble.

'I mean,' Chloe covered quickly, 'they have to, right? Two Whales was pretty solid, and I saw a lot of people manage to get on the road before the shit went to hell…'

Her own resolve ran out as quickly as it had emerged. She could no longer tell if she attempting to dig Max out of her melancholy, or if it was an effort to extricate herself from the madness. Because, she thought to herself, if it was the latter, she was in for a loosing fight.

'How much further you think 'till Seattle?'

Max only gave a shrug.

'You manage to call them yet?'

'Phone lines are still down,' Max sighed, pulling her phone into plain sight to see, before she let it drop to her lap in the same instant, 'at least last time I tried.'

'Well,' Chloe prodded gently, 'what's the harm in trying again? Would be, I don't know, hella nice for them to hear that their daughter isn't dead in a ditch somewhere.'

Damn! She caught herself too late, and her features were already softening when she realised Max was no longer listening to her, as she gently tapped the screen, before bringing the thin metallic sleeve up to her ear, leaving Chloe to only pray her friend was not about to self destruct.

This time however, Max did not put down the phone, and her eyes widened in the silent realisation of her own flawed presumption, as the line began to chirp.

'Max?'

'Mom?'

'So what'd she say?'

'Well,' Max started, tentatively as she were only a newborn taking her first step, 'she's glad we're alive, I guess.'

'You guess?' Chloe asked in mock horror, earning an immediate glare from Max, before she realised it's joking nature. Evidently, Max was not in the mood for jokes yet. Neither was Chloe, in fact, though she did not know it. It was hard upon the older girl to know her friend's family was alive and safe, when her own remained unaccounted for, and she fought with dogged determination to be happy for Max where she could, but by God it was hard!

'Dad's not back yet, but he should be by the time we pull in. Should only be a few more hours back to Seattle.'

'You got internet back home?'

'Unless my parents turned by room into a python cage while I was gone, we should. Why?'

Chloe's eyes dropped, and this time it was Max regretting her attempt to lighten the mood, as she realised there had been something of far graver significance behind the innocuous request.

'They're meant to have, like, casualty lists, right? I want to be able to know if, well, you know, they turn up.'

'I get you Chloe,' Max finished for her, 'don't worry; we'll find them.'

Chloe seemed at ease, and for once, Max could breathe a sigh of relief. She had already rewound once after she had stupidly allowed her tongue to slip into the doubtful semantics of 'someone had to have survived'. Of course, that had not given the brightest image of their friends' survival, and Max, unable to watch Chloe's own loss of hope, could not stand to have lived with such upon her past.

The bandage held over the festering wound.

* * *

From behind the counter, Hall watched in suppressed satisfaction as the two girls cleared out of his business. They had eaten in relative silence, aside from a few words of Seattle and a few landmark or two as they tried to plot their way home, and paid for their meal, leaving a slither of a tip one could have only expected from a pair of students. Or rather, as Hall suspected, but had no way of confirming, a punk troublemaker and her student friend. His cook had charged off early, begging the need to check on his family in the nearby town of Arcadia Bay, only an hour before the storm had flattened it, and although Hall was genuinely concerned for the poor soul, that little altercation had also left him short handed, in an occupation he had an almost miniscule degree of experience in.

Despite their brief standoff over the beer, Hall amended with a sigh, he was at least grateful they had been accommodating enough to order eggs. Any other dish on the menu of a joint that stood mostly upon it's drink rather than the odd stuffing it doled out to passersby would have been a nightmare for him to trundle through, and it would have only been an embarrassment. But disaster had been averted; the two teens were gone; the drunk at the bar was still ready for another round with the funds to spare, and in the same time, one of his regulars; a dour faced resident of the late Arcadia Bay by the name of Waters, had come by to drown his own sorrows.

Only for it to rear it's ugly head again, as the doorbell chimed once more.

The newcomer was draped in a dull jacket, soaked through with the life of the storm, as he slunk through the doorway, casting his eye to either side with natural disdain, before making his way to the bar and pulling himself atop one of the elevated chairs.

'What can I get you?'

'Just a shot.'

'Anything specific?'

A mumble that was lost on Hall's deafening ears, and with a slight scowl of irritation, he leaned in closer to hear the man's request.

'Come again?'

'Gin, and uh, a word or two.'

'On what?' Hall demanded, roughly snapping away from the stranger. He was liking his predicament even less, and he leant back ever so slightly, making sure the revolver he had stashed beneath the thin wooden tabletop was still where he'd left it.

'Aside from these lads, anyone else happen to pass through here in last houror so?'

'Can't say if anyone did,' Hall replied carefully, 'Waters popped in a couple minutes back; he who you're looking for?'

He was unable to stop a grim smile from spreading across his features as he watched the newcomer find himself face to face with the titan. Although any man who had known Waters could have probably defined him as the gentle giant, the man's oversized frame had a habit of intimidation. As was it Hall's habit of using his friend's physique to ward off any trouble in the establishment; it kept order, and Waters never declined a chance to bolster his fragile ego, so it was practically a no brainer he had chosen Hall's dinner as his local get away.

A nervous laugh left the man's mouth, and he turned back to Hall, careful to avoid contracting Waters' gaze once again, as the bartender produced his own spirits.

'Not quite. A pair of girls? Late teens? One about there,' he waved a hand about his own head, 'and one about here?' The hand moved to his neck.

'What's it to you?'

'So they were here?'

'Didn't see,' Hall snarled, deciding it was time to end their little dance, 'I was out back, and I try to avoid pushing my nose into other people's business.'

'Then who was behind the counter?'

'Look kid-'

Hall hadn't even finished when the man snatched up his glass, before he slammed it down upon Hall's outstretched hand, sending more than a few shards of broken silica through to the bone.

Hall shrieked out in agony, and ripped his hand away from the table, screaming obscenities at the psychopath. In the same moment, Waters' own hand dropped to his belt, only realise the his own pistol was no longer in its holster.

He never saw the flash of steel in the murderer's hand, as the switchblade slipped past his ribs, before withdrawing in an instant. Then it returned with a vengeance; twice, to be precise, and then the blade was gone, allowing the tide of blood to escape the punctured man unobstructed.

The trucker himself was barely comprehending the sudden escalation of violence off to his left, and he had only begun to turn when the young man tore at the air separating the two of them. He caught him across the throat; the blade itself was unable to cut neither deep nor seriously into the windpipe of the staggering figure, but the simple shock was enough to send the uneasy man tumbling off his chair, as he clasped at his throat, unable to determine the extent of the damage.

Hall was still trying to determine if the drunken man had in fact broken his neck, when the stranger decided to remedy that doubt little doubt, by proceeding throw himself upon the gasping man, as the blade darted back and forth across a steep arc, until naught remained the of the poor man's face but a tapestry of broken flesh.

Of course, his loss was Hall's gain, for beneath his screams, the barkeeper was able to finally detach the blasted revolver from it's hiding spot, and he pulled back the hammer with an audible click.

His assailant; slick with the blood of his most reccent victim, seemed to hear it as well, but Hall was not waiting for him to realise his own fate, as he pulled the trigger.

The bullet ripped into the stranger's hip, and drove him to the ground, before Hall opened fire again.

Nothing.

Then the muzzle flashed; only, it was not Hall's gun that had expressed its fury, and Hall felt something warm seep through his chest.

* * *

'I asked you once,' the stranger whispered, leaning over him, as he tried to steady his own weakening movements, 'so I'll extend the offer one more fucking time; where the hell did they go?'

'Fuck you,' Hall spat, 'I ain't-'

He got no further. With a shrug, the stranger simply let go of the desk he had used for a support, dropped atop him, and plunged his thumbs into Hall's eyes.

'Where?'

Hall was still shrieking when he felt the name slip past his tearing vocal chords.

'Seattle! Fuck, it was Seattle! God!'

He pulled his hands up to the red sockets that remained, as if in some vain hope that the act might suddenly restore his sight, but his tormentor was no longer paying attention. Numbly, he fished a phone from his pocket, dialling in a number, before he realised with more than a little annoyance that his hands were still slick with blood; of both Hall's and his own. After a careful moment taken to daub his hands upon a convenient napkin, he completed his message, punched 'enter', and tucked the communicator away for further use, as he slumped against the wall, searching for the strength to stand once more, even as Hall continued to mewl and scream at his side, clawing blindly at his old sight.

Then, and only then, did the door explode in a shower of broken glass.

'Drop the weapon!' Emendus roared, 'Drop the fucking gun!'

He did not bother to wait for a reply, letting one accurate round fly that simply gutted the raised firearm from a distance, leaving the bewildered murder disarmed, surrounded by two corpses, and one soon-to-be cadaver.

'Clear right,' Praesentius called in his comm piece, 'Adrentius, watch that blasted flank! Fire discipline you idiot!'

'Clear left.' Came Maudus' report, 'zero contacts.'

Emendus only partly comprehended their reports, as he felt the adrenaline deploy into his system, through the countless little pins scattered across the interior of his chest piece. It had been almost three years, and eighty seven deployments, since he had lost all function to the Gladius Organ, or the Adrenal glands, to use its human equivalent, after a stray round had clipped the Guardsman through the side, but the pain was still as raw as the first time he'd used the artificial stimulants. Not that it was unwelcomed though; it helped him to feel alive, as his eyes narrowed behind the red lenses of his helm, assessing every motion of the murderer before him.

The man's hand fell to his side, scrambling desperately for something in his pocket, and Emendus made the same choice he had taken a thousand times in the past. He neutralised the threat, as he opened fire again.

The minute charge at the heart of the round ripped apart the target's hand before he could reach whatever he had held in his pocket, as did it destroy the weapon in a hail of sparks. That, and it had the added effect of filling the dinner with screams afresh, damning him to the depths of hell for creating a cripple of a man who lived on the hunt.

'Clear!'

'Alright you son of a bitch,' Emendus seethed, clearing the space separating the pair of the combatants in the briefest of moments, 'where is the target? Where's the timekeeper?'

Nothing. With his hand still on the trigger, the Guardsman checked for a pulse; shallow and weak, but still present.

'Orteus, get in here; we have a critical target. Stabilize, and wake him up. I don't care if it puts him in the grave; we need a damn lead.'

'Bugger was going for his phone,' said Claudius, hefting the shattered remains of the second 'firearm' Emendus had dispatched with excessive force, 'shit.'

'You can still recover something from that, right?'

'I can't work miracles,' the Guardsman sighed, 'but I can try. No promises though.'

'Then bag whatever you can salvage and prepare to move out. We gotta bail, fast.'

'Is anyone there?'

Immediately, the air was alive with the clatter of steel, as Emendus, Claudius, Erenus and Regenus snapped their weapons to attention, training them upon the source of the noise. Upon the blinded bartender, who continued to lie in a growing pool of his own life fluid.

'Is anyone there?'

'What happened?' Emendus demanded roughly, before he stopped himself, switched his tone and tried again, ever ready to exploit the cards that were handed to him. 'Patrol 11, we have the subject in custody and multiple casualties on site; I need a paramedic now.'

There was no reply of course from the supposed dispatch center, but his report had seemed to put the poor man at ease.

'You officers?'

'Aye, you're safe now. Now tell me, please, what the hell happened over here? We heard gunfire and-'

'He just came in and started asking about a pair of girls,' Hall sobbed, 'I just thought it was too fucking suspicious, so I told him I didn't. Then the bastard just went fucking insane! Is Waters still there?'

Emendus took a brief glance away from the sorry form laid out before him. A heavyset man, reeking of alcohol even through his suit's air scrubbers, was off to his right, missing a tangible face, whilst on his left, another was crumpled up in a fetal positition. A quick check from Regenus already signalled the worst.

'He didn't make it.'

'Oh God,' Hall cried, 'what the hell did I do?'

'Hey, hey,' Emendus broke in, 'listen, do you have any idea why he was after two girls?'

'Like hell if I know!'

'Did they come by here? Mr, I need to know; if this SOB was after them, they could still be in danger, you understand? Were they here?'

A hurried nod.

'They took the window table about half an hour back.'

'Did they say where they were going?'

'They mentioned something about Seattle,' Hall murmured, 'I really didn't pry. Is the ambulance coming?'

'Hold on, sir,' Emendus soothed, before he shut off his suit's exterior speakers, limiting what he had to say to the Guard comm net alone, 'Oretus, belay my previous order. Stabilize and prepare to extract the prick. We'll interrogate him back at the safehouse. Take Adrentius and Maudus with you and lock him, and see if you can get a trace on the phone's last contact. We'll head for Seattle and see if we can pick up the trail.'

'Understood, Warden.'

'Hey, you still there?'

Hall's weakening voice echoed off the upturned dinner's walls, but no sound replied him, as Emendus waved for his team to extract. He had lost too much blood to survive for long, and although Emendus was fairly certain Orteus might have provided some means of alleviating his pain, the costs would have been too high. A literally alien substance in a blinded man's body would have only invited greater suspicion, Emendus thought, as Orteus tossed him an empty syringe. With silent affirmation, the Warden followed his men from the dinner, halting only to lay the emptied syrette upon an unoccupied table near the entrance of the dinner. With it's interior daubed with enough forensic residue, it would be easier for the cops to write this one off as a drug induced bout of violence.

'What's that, Praesentius?'

'Don't know,' the Hunter exclaimed as he departed the dinner with a small roll of paper between his fingertips, 'a souvenir? It was on their table.'

'Is that a cigarette?'

'Great Father knows. Want it?'

'I sure as hell don't,' Emendus shot back, 'but Maudus might. Get him to pull whatever DNA samples he can off the saliva.'

'Wait,' the Hunter said, 'this shit goes in their mouth?'

Emendus gave him an irritated look, as he saw the mock terror passing beneath Praesentius' helm.

'That's disgusting.'

'You're not wrong there, Hunter.' Emendus sighed.

Behind them, Hall's demands had risen to a scream, damning them to the depths of hell for their abandonment. But Emendus, nor any at his side, ever looked back.


	3. False Sanctuary

'It's a door,' Chloe's voice echoed off from somewhere over her right shoulder, 'I think you're meant to knock on it, dude.'

Even then, Max's hand refused to move. They had spent the last five hours trundling up the I-5, mostly through the dark as the last remnants of the storm had dispersed itself across the county, and rolled into town only to attach themselves to the last dregs of the evening rush home from work.

All that time, Max's eyes had refused to close. Partly out of necessity for at least three of those hours, which she had spent behind the wheel, but even at Chloe's behest, she had been unable to drift off to sleep. Chloe's theory as to the constant death that followed her every footstep continued to torment Max, and it was with grave apprehension that she continued to scan the darkening night, praying her eyes could pierce the darkness before any unseen threat could accomplish fate's desire. The thought of losing Chloe to the plots of destiny whilst she slept proved stronger than the fatigue of guilt.

But nothing transpired. Even when they pulled into the apartment's driveway, a friendly faced guard, whose name continued to evade Max's memory, much to her horror, had recognised the Blackwell student from her days in the city, and let them in unchallenged, leaving Max quite dumbfounded as to how long it would take before everything plunged into hell once again.

But she had made her choice, and with tentative caution, she extended her arm to the door, only to hear the heavy turn of the lock, and the barrier was flung open to admit a familiar silhouette.

'Mom!' She cried, throwing her arms about her mother, and in a single moment, the maelstrom of warped emotion; the pain of the loss, the anger at the unfairness of it all…

The guilt of a hundred deaths. Probably more, she realised as the shock of her choice finally passed, to present all that presided within her burdened heart to the scrutiny of the one who had brought her into being.

And despite herself, she could not fathom what she saw in her mother's eyes.

Love. Of a monster.

* * *

'Evening to you too, prick,' Praesentius muttered, as he stamped on the gas, leaving a rather cheerful toll operator rather bemused at the general lack of any reciprocation of his polite wave, 'Give people a coin and it's all smiles and waves, but if you don't? Great Father, they're obliged to hunt you down and drag you into a bloody hearing just to milk more shiny tibbits from you.'

'That's capitalism, Hunter,' Regenus snorted, 'people who have more shiny objects get to boast that they got more shiny shit, you read me?'

'Not really. Where the hell does it even get you?'

'Car, home, food?'

'I was talking about hell.'

'Fair enough,' Regenus responded. Of course, for a pair of Guardsmen who had grown up on a world where currency had been abolished several millennia past, Earth's monetary system was a strange alien custom neither had managed to get their head around for the length of their posting, though their questions to humans had stopped long ago, after Praesentius had rammed a police car during what he liked to call the 'minor altercation' when he'd exited a gun store without the customary monetary exchange. Needless to say, the store owner had called the cops not long after, leading to a brief chase, a pileup on the I-29, and one heavily irritated store owner whose inventory was left one rifle short.

However, although they had stopped openly defying the strange habit of the planet, that did not stop the endless chatter. Particularly on the long car journeys, where the only options to pass the time remained in talk, or insanity.

'You got the signal yet, Claudius?' Asked Praesentius, rotating the steering wheel rested beneath his hands to avoid tearing into the rapidly approaching curb. A driver, evidently displeased at his incompetence behind the wheel, gesticulated wildly in the rear mirror, and for the briefest of moments, the thought crossed both the- minds of both Guardsmen to simply hit the brakes, and allow the smug idiot behind them to rear end them, providing the excuse to drag him to court. Or at least, the Guardsman's equivalent of self administered justice, which could usually involve anything from a few broken bones to a cracked head, but Praesentius restrained himself. Barely, but he did so nonetheless.

'Three hundred meters northwest of your position,' the old data Seer-turned-Guardsman crackled over his communication bead, 'moving perpendicular to your approach. Advise you take the third left turn.'

'Copy that, Claud. Keep us updated. And while we're on the matter, you couldn't have found, I don't know, a mask that didn't have sleaze written over his bloody mug?'

'Really?' Came the voice on the far end of the static, 'I thought it suited you.'

'I look like one of those inked up freaks on a bad sunday afternoon show, you twit,' Praesentius shot back, 'you want me arrested?'

'Depends. Could be entertaining.'

Praesentius did not bother replying, instead concentrating on the road as they sped through the darkness. Given the fact the average Guardsman reached, or even exceeded seven feet after donning their matted suits of hardened carapace, and could have only been mistaken for a human by the most heavily intoxicated individual, whose eyes had been put out long ago, Praesentius and Regenus had both donned a standard issue holomask that managed render the pair of killers passable at a glance.

That being said, the bodies they impersonated still had to be changed up after each jeopardize mission, and given Claudius' general lack of artistic competence, or motivation, the former data Seer had developed a bad habit of ripping full bodies and identities from the local area. A good and fast way to ensure that the cops would remain thoroughly confused over the coming days, without any suspicious material left over that could lead to a trace upon Guard operations, but a surefire means to invite trouble if the 'donor' of their cloak wandered around the corner, into his doppleganger.

It still did not explain why Claudius, much to the disappointment of Praesentius, usually chose registered criminals for the latter's disguise, but the Hunter never had a choice: it was either to accept the download, or to walk on with the exterior appearance of a war suit.

'Keep heading straight,' the mischievous Seer continued into Praesentius' ear, 'one hundred meters, then take the right.'

'Affirmative. We get a match yet on who we're looking for?'

'The number our friend from the dinner called is registered to a Simon Henning; migrated over from Hamburg about two years ago.'

'Then what's he doing in Seattle?'

'With luck, following our Timekeeper.'

'Anything on the DNA, yet?'

'Maudus relayed a match through from the safe house about ten minutes ago; so far, we've logged one Chloe Elizabeth Price, although he said there might be another sample.'

'So,' Praesentius asked with increasing tautness, 'who's the second?'

'He's still working on it.'

'What about Price?'

'Resident of Arcadia Bay for, well, her whole damn life. A lot of trouble the law; breaking and entering, substance abuse, petty theft, dropped out of university, blah blah blah, you want me to go on? Even if she's not our lass, she's trouble, and she was on station when the tornado hit. That's probably all you need and want to know.'

'You know me, Claudius,' Praesentius mused; a half grin contort across his false features, 'let me know if anything else comes up.'

The comm link snapped off, just as the soft click of steel sounded off to the Hunter's side.

'Think you'll be needing that?'

'Hopefully not,' Regenus answered, as he slammed the Hellfire clip back into the matted pistol he clasped in his hands, 'but you know the Third Law of the Hunt.'

'The unprepared hunter gets a stick rammed up his arse?'

Regenus gave him an incredulous look.

'The unprepared hunter gets a stick rammed up the wrong arse?'

'That preparation determines the Hunter from the Prey.'

'Ah. I would have gotten it eventually.'

Regenus only sank back into his seat, trying to comprehend just how the Hunter at his side continued to hold the honor of donning the Great Wolf's pelt upon his shoulders. Although Emendus still hurled him at assignments requiring the touch of one of the Guard's specialised infiltrators, and practically treated him as an extension of their Hunters, he was never given, nor asked of the respect worthy of their name. He had forsaken that when his mishap on Caldor had cost the lives of nearly every Guardsman present at the Firebase, after an idiotic error had led more than a few xenos to the concealed base.

He had never questioned Meridus' decision to strip the Wolf's cloak from his neck, and even today he continued to pay the price, but it understandably gaulled the former Hunter at the prospect of flippancy towards tomes he had learnt by heart, from a Guardsman that had been allowed to retain that the unit's mark.

But if Praesentius had a habit of overlooking the stricter practices of the Hunter echelon within the Council's Guard, Regenus observed with a mixture of amusement and contempt, he still knew how to exploit every situation he was faced with. And if those old laws called for the unbound respect and obedience of his pack, they had a strange tendency to reappear to the haggard Hunter, for a fleeting moment, before being thrown off to the void once more, once they had served their purpose.

'Target dead ahead. You have visual?'

'I see him,' Praesentius growled softly, 'hostile is on foot and mobile, advancing northbound. Regenus, get out.'

'Aye, Hunter.' Regenus hoped the mask's vocal distortion would conceal at least some of the loathing he knew to echo within his words. If Praesentius did perceive it though, he gave no indication. Or maybe he simply did not care.

The more probable outcome, the shamed stalker admitted to himself, as he uncoupled the crude fabric binders that served as the primitive vehicle's only form of safety in the event of an unforeseen crash, took a single breath, and rolled out the door, into the milling night crowd of Seattle. Orders were orders.

Within moments, he was gone.

* * *

'Chloe Price?'

'Hi,' Chloe offered awkwardly, letting her hand rise the most minute distance for a half hearted wave, before she let the appendage drop once more.

'You've,' Vanessa stumbled for the word, still trying to place the familiar frame of Chloe's face underneath the mop of blue hair, 'you've changed, Chloe.'

Chloe nearly spat a laugh. A bitter, mordant laugh, which she was thankfully able to restrain; it had been well over five years since she, or Vanessa Caulfield for that matter, had laid eyes upon the woman that stood before her.

And Chloe knew she had changed. Five years was long enough for abandonment issues to catch up with one. Alongside the substances, and interference with either questionable personalities, like Frank Bowers and Rachel Amber, though she loathed to think of her departed friend in such a manner, or downright unwanted individuals, like one Nathan Prescott, Max's old friend had a long way to fall.

Which she had seemed to continue, upon a path of self destruction, with unceasing enthusiasm until the last week. But a week is too short a time to rectify the errors of half a decade, and she could already see the traces of disappointment creeping into Vanessa's features.

It was bereft of condemnation; Chloe had known Vanessa long enough to know her a patient woman, who would not have hesitated a moment in welcoming in an old friend of her daughter, but she did not know if that made it all the worse. It was beginning to claw at her; a little voice at the fringes of her conscience cooing in her ear that she had betrayed the confidence of one who would not judge her, at least vocally. A week prior, she might have only exploited Vanessa's 'error', but now she only could feel remorse.

Of course, that was all atop her own mother's disappearance, and quite probable death. Max had labored long and hard to talk her down from entering Two Whales; the crap about needing to leave the rescue teams to do their job was finally catching up to Chloe and although she had given up her studies long ago, that was not to say she lacked a brain. And Chloe could only think of one reason Max would try to keep her from the site of her mother's place of work.

So, now, sat before the homecoming she had never had, after she had so vigorously driven away the only one who could offer such sanctuary to her being, and now robbed of the opportunity to even say goodbye, as she had waited for the howling gale to pass overhead, it was understandable that regret had finally caught up with the renegade of Arcadia Bay.

'I guess,' was the only response she could find, 'you've changed yourself.'

'You think?' Vanessa asked her reflexively, taking a brief moment to assess if she too had become so unrecognisable before she realised it was naught but only common courtesy. At least by Chloe's estimated standards, which was never saying much, but Chloe was grateful for the distraction nonetheless. Though she had not intended it, for a moment, the woman's attention was elsewhere, and with their conversation broken, it would no longer seem rude if she begged to be excused.

'You mind if I use the bathroom?' She queried, perhaps a little too quickly, as Vanessa's eyes snapped to meet her again, 'it's been awhile since the last rest stop, and-'

'Go ahead, Chloe,' came the response, 'make yourself at home, but...is Joyce alright? They said that-'

Their grim faces silenced her and the thought died without fully transpiring, as a warning passed through Max's features, and Chloe; always the outgoing one, to the point of nearly inviting confrontation, averted her eyes, as if she had some part to play in what could only be worst.

'I don't know, mom,' Max sighed, 'we didn't see. But a lot of people got out before-'

'I understand, honey. I understand.'

But she did not.

Chloe hurried past her, barely comprehending Vanessa's condolences for her own suffering, for no one seemed quite as willing as Chloe herself to accept her mother's death. In her hurry, she missed the door, before Max gently corrected her. Then, and only then, did she shut herself away, pleading her mother's forgiveness. Some part of her old self remained furious; furious at fate's cruel selection, but for the most of it, she was too tired to be angry for long.

She had been furious for the larger part of her life, and it had exhausted her entirely.

All that remained now was sorrow.

'Chloe?' Max's voice sounded from the far side of the door, 'Chloe? Listen, listen, whatever happens, I'm right here.'

'Then leave me alone Max.'

'Chloe-'

'Leave me alone!'

As soon as her outburst had departed her throat, she regretted it. Of all the people present, she had the least cause to divulge her pent-up fury upon Max. Max who had delivered her from fate.

Max who had destroyed all she had asked her to destroy.

Max who had cost her a mother, and two fathers.

In the end, she simply wept, unable to find hatred anymore. She could not tell if Max deserved love or pain, but in the end, the only person she had left to hate lay in her own self. As the lone fault of the tragedy; a loose end in the plans of destiny.

Outside, Max slumped against the shut door, defeated, and possessed by her own guilt, she could no longer drive herself to talk Chloe down anymore.

Max the monster, she thought softly to herself. At least it was the truth, she told herself. She never had been a hero: only one who had brought destruction to all she had tried to save.

For that, there was little pride to be found; only shame.

* * *

Seven stories below the despondent master of time, and slave to fate, Simon Henning stepped out of the streetlight. Carefully checking his surroundings, he slid the small metallic sleeve from his pocket, and fished about the lock, praying for that audible click that would herald his entry.

A sound, but not the one he sought, and with panicked haste, the man spun about, suspicion contort across his form. A relative newcomer to the organisation that had brought him to the door before him, Henning was no cat burglar, as he prayed for a miracle.

It befell him, in the form of an equally started rat, as it scampered back into the darkness, begging relief from his gaze, and slowly, Henning's breath returned to an acceptable pace, and he returned to the lock.

Slowly, he felt the weight swing out of place, and with a ginger touch, as if he somehow anticipated the rear entrance to spontaneously combust in a fury of fire, he slid the door open.

Barely able to suppress his relief, his hand dropped to the pouch at his side, gliding over the instruments within with the utmost caution, for fear that the instrument might harm the master. A clear glass bottle of a substance whose label would remain forever unknown to Henning, for his handler had decided to tear it from its embrace, leave one side gummy with sickly residue; a torchlight with a battery life he had yet to determine; another unlabeled container, this time one of plastic, that gave a sharp rattle as he displaced them from their position, and at the very corner; an empty syringe.

Content that his equipment had not decided to uproot themselves from his belonging, and that the pistol locked to his back remained fully loaded for when the worst inevitably came to pass, and with a final glimpse cast over his shoulder, Henning passed through the doorway, mumbling his wishes to simply climb back into his bed at a sane hour as he went.

Of course, amid his self pity, he never saw the pair of red eyes following his every step from across the street. And as the door slid shut, the spectre slipped unobtrusively from its shelter beneath the cowl upon its forehead, ghosting across the intervening space with unnatural ease, before it mimicked Henning's own actions only moments before. Albeit, with a calm it's predecessor had not felt, as it slid an armored digit into the already ravaged keyhole and rotated it twice, let out a suppressed grumble at a failed attempt, and tried once more, before the door finally submitted to the second intruder of the night.

'Making my intrusion,' Regenus whispered into his comm piece.

'Copy all, Artemis-One,' the cold voice on the far end of the static snapped, 'cut comms until extraction; mission phase three has greenlight. Repeat, greenlight.'

'Copy all, running silent.'

With that, Regenus followed his prey, disappearing through the narrowing pathway with nearly contemptuous ease; to the point at which a pair of eyes had in fact witnessed his entry, yet could only scarcely recall the details by the day's end, for no thought had been paid to a man who had appeared to so confidently uphold to his allocated, natural place in society.

It was all too easy to mistake the shade for a simple employee, as he walked on; a nearly cheerful gait etching his every footstep, as he returned to the shadows, on the solitary hunt once more.

In a strange fashion, one could have said he was simply back to the a job he loved.

* * *

 _A note from the Author: I apologise if the story's running a little slowly, and for the slow rate I've been putting these out; things have been a little busy on my end, but I enjoy a bit of suspense. To those who are about to kill me for the pace of the story, have patience. The next two chapters are about to heat up. If you have a moment, don't forget to drop a review! I really appreciate feedback; constructive feedback even more so than praise, so if you think there's anything that can be worked on, please let me know and I'll do my best to adjust for it in the coming installations!_


	4. Mistaken Address

_Author's Note: I apologise that these uploads have been more than a little sporadic; I have a pretty clear idea of how this tale shall come to an end, but the manner in which we get there has been subject to quite a bit of change recently. Really appreciate Time Dragon's support; thank you man, and if you, or anyone reading this for that matter, see anything that could, or should be improved, please let me know; I'm always looking to try and improve my writing. With that out of the way, enjoy!_

* * *

'Well, the important part is that you're safe.'

Max did not know the appropriate response; only to return to the cooling plate of pasta before her, as her mother's eyes departed her, darting over to Ryan's own figure in a plea for aid. But out of the corner of her eye, Max could plainly see from her father's half startled face, as Vanessa's eyes fell upon him with that unsubtle nod of her head in their daughter's direction; the one that parents so often believe to go unnoticed by children, that he too had no better alternative to drawing any more details from Maxine Caulfield.

It was strange to still think of them as children, Max reflected absently, but then again, in Vanessa and Ryan's eyes at least, she had never left the label of their 'daughter'. They would always be there for when the worst came to pass.

But few could have anticipated the storm, and either Vanessa or Ryan had a tremendous degree of expertise in handling what was, in their minds, a clear case of survivor's guilt.

And Max could not bring herself to tell them it was not the case; rather, just the guilt branded upon the guilty hand.

Without warning, the TV abruptly sparked to life, and despite herself, Max slowly craned her head to the side, as she watched Chloe fumble with the remote, trying to discern the vague symbols that instructed the model's operation.

Some sports game, an old classic neither Chloe nor Max had managed to watch in it's entirety yet, and an abysmal add for a dairy product snapped by, before Chloe found the channel she sought; the same one Max had dreaded.

'...still underway to reach the site,' a newscaster emitted at a half shout, as heavy machinery churned and roared in the background, 'As you can see, the storm devastated most of the roadways, although the central route is still clear. Rescuers have already pulled countless survivors from the rubble, but it's anticipated the death toll is still to rise-'

Another channel silenced at Chloe's behest, though if she was looking for a reprieve from the facts, she would be disappointed as the image on the screen dissipated, to reform into a brightly lit newsroom, as experts exchanged theories to the disaster, and the responsibility.

'There's already talk that Arcadia officials may be pursuing a case against local observers for failing to predict the tragedy; Roth, what, um, what would you say to these accusations?'

'Well,' a voice laden with weariness began, as if this were not the first time he was explaining the destruction of a fishing hamlet that had little impact upon his own life, save his career, 'tornadoes are still one of those events that are almost impossible to actually predict; we can track which storms might produce a tornado, but whether or not they produce one at all is still-'

Another channel.

'Casualties are still pouring in from the affected areas; as of now, the death toll stands at nearly eighty seven people dead, including-'

The TV snapped off. Only, Chloe was no longer holding the matted remote that had once flickered between the numerous heralds of dismay, and for a brief moment, she looked down at her palms in surprise, as if she somehow expected it materialise once more, before she looked up. To her side, Max stood with the thin control slate nestled in one palm.

'Chloe,' Max began, trying to keep her voice as even as possible, 'you can't do this to yourself.'

'What are you talking about Max?' Chloe's voice had turned terse; filled with suspicion once more as her friend took her seat. It did not seem like Max at all, she thought to herself; only hours ago she had been in an emotional wreck, ignorant of Chloe's own grief, and now that she had come to recognise it so quickly over so short a time, it was nearly unnatural.

'You can't think that all this was your fault,' Max pleaded, but by the time she had paused to collect her thoughts, Chloe had ceased to listen.

'My fault? My fault?!' She nearly screamed at fever pitch, 'Fucking hell Max! I was willing to try and drag you out of your self pity, but my God, don't turn around and fucking throw it on me!'

'I'm not throwing anything on you-' Max's eyes had widened like an uncontrolled balloon, as she realised how her words had been interpreted, and there was some small part of Chloe that registered her friend's concern. But now that the dam had given way, it was impossible to backpedal, as her emotions poured out. Controlling herself had never been one of Chloe's strong points, but she had tried; placed every ounce of mental integrity over the past five hours into dragging Max from the ditch of guilt, and now it had all proved too much, as had everything else.

'I was willing to die; does that even count for shit?! I was ready to fucking end it so the storm wouldn't hit, but what the fuck did you do?'

'Chloe!' Ryan shouted, 'It's no one's-'

There would have been more, but Max's own voice cut him off with a surprising steel.

'No, dad, she's right. I fucked it up.'

Despite themselves, Ryan and Vanessa stared at her, their mouths agape as her words confirmed their worst fears. Except for the fact that of course, neither thought to separate 'survivor's' from the single clause of 'guilt'. It was entirely expected in their minds for Max to blame herself, and dreaded the outcome, but never in a thousand years would they have believed it to hold any logical credence. And so the certainty in her voice rocked them to the core.

For the briefest of moments, they had lost their daughter, before their world disintegrated before their very eyes.

* * *

'You okay, dude?'

'Yeah,' Max sighed, rubbing her eye, 'just-'

'I understand,' Chloe responded softly, as she turned back to the television set, 'God, please, just let them be alright.'

She broke off, unable to continue any longer as her eyes remained glued to the distant screen. Upon it's surface, the speaker continued to read off the names of the confirmed survivors, and then the dead, uninterrupted by the hazel haired girl, as she only stared into the scarred imprints upon her open palm.

It seemed like a year had passed since she had first tried to halt the inevitable, but fate seemed to have conspired against her on nearly every account. The first few efforts had petered out amidst the collapse of her own composure, and when she had finally moved past such, she had only appeared cold and dispassionate to Chloe, who had yet to earn the mercy of time to soothe the painful scar.

And now, Max could do it no more. She could not conceal or flee from the truth anymore, nor did she wish to any longer, and Chloe's face crumpled as the name 'Joyce Madsen' flashed upon the flat screen. It's presence was brief, fleeting, and crushing.

Max could only offer a shoulder for Chloe to find rest upon, as the blue mop of hair against her, and she could only hover there, utterly inept in the face of Chloe's grief.

At least this time, Max tried to tell herself amidst the suppressed wail of her tormented friend, she would be there to catch her fall.

After everything she had put her through, it was the least she could do.

* * *

'Fuck.'

The single syllabled word slipped from Henning's mouth like an insolent child; entirely detached from his own conscious will to remain a shadow; an unheard spectre, as his gloved hands fumbled for the cylindrical container that had only moments prior slipped from his grasp, rattling insufferably with each passing turn it made upon the granite counter. With a sinking feeling, he was beginning to regret his ignorance of Damien's advice in bringing a full container, and he spared himself one final glance over his shoulder as his digits locked around the infuriating tube, though what good it would have done the infiltrator in the event of detection was beyond him. With both his hands occupied with the task at hand, his only hope to avoid a bullet in the back would be haste, before a Caulfield or Price turned the corner into the kitchen to find a middle-aged man with a balaclava draped over his face unscrewing a suspiciously unlabeled medical container, over an unguarded glass of water.

With a final desperate click, the cap fell away, and Henning unceremoniously tipped the entirety of the bottle's contents into the cup.

'Come on,' he pleaded, peering over the glass's brim, 'hurry up, hurry up-'

He stopped, and spun around, terror rooting him to the spot. For a moment, he had seen the mother; Vanessa, step into the doorway, and he had briefly wondered if her tongue had only been tied by shock, until he finally realised that no one had found him, as the kindly lady stopped just short of the entryway, still in subdued conversation with her husband, undoubtedly gripped by concern for the two survivors of the storm.

Henning, on the other hand, had run out of patience. Praying fate would grant the pellets sufficient time to dissolve into the drink, he dove for the shadows, slipping back into the darkened corridor, and the open window that lay at its very end, as footsteps pattered softly in his wake upon the tiled kitchen floor.

* * *

'Has Chloe had anything to drink yet?'

'What?' Max spun around with a guilty pause, to find her father standing in the doorway to the kitchen, before she finally realised the true implications of his words, and relaxed. 'No, I don't think so.'

She could not tell if Ryan's glance was any indication that he had somehow discerned Chloe's capability to sniff out alcohol, and the fact that barely two hours before pulling up the driveway, she had managed to acquire and down bottle from a less scrupulous source, but she decided it was not the primary cause of his thought. No, it was just in her part as a horrendous host.

'You want to offer her something? I mean, to keep her mind off things?'

'I get it,' Max finished for him, drawing the glass she had nearly raised to her lips only moments ago back into her grasp, 'I don't think she's looking to get pissed tonight anyway.'

'I might,' Ryan muttered, more to himself than his daughter, 'Joyce; my God-'

Max headed back out into the living room before Ryan could complete his train of thought, where Chloe was still huddled upon the sofa. Vanessa remained within an arm's reach of her twisted form, but save for Max, Chloe had only begged for isolation following the dreaded news, and Max briefly toyed with traveling back, one last time to spare her from the pain, but it was a futile effort. Sooner or later, she would have known, and she could not stand lying to her friend any longer. She only wanted to walk on, with life.

'Hey Chloe,' Max sighed, dropping down beside her friend, 'you want a drink?'

'That depends. You have anything strong?'

'Not quite. Water?'

'It'll be a start, I guess,' mused her friend, as she accepted the glass, and brought it to her own lips, 'I - I never got to say goodbye. I mean, shit, the last time I saw her, she was with my step prick, and - well, I tried to stop being such a shit, but fuck!' The words were torn from her like a thorn, and for a moment, she faltered, eying the glass in her hand, swirling the liquid about with an endless glaze, before she realised Max was still listening; still encouraging her to share her burden with them all. 'I never actually said it, Max. I never made up with her, and now; now it's too late.'

'I'm really sorry, Chloe.' As soon as the words left her mouth, they seemed as empty and hollow as a serial murderer's belated confession at the execution chamber; though she had not willed it, she had chosen for them all to die. And their blood would remain upon her hands. For a moment, she almost did see red gracing her palms with it's devilish embrace.

Then; then she saw that it was no dream.

'Chloe?'

'I'm not,' Chloe began, her eyes glazing over as her nose began to run thick with a river of blood, 'I'm not feeling too good-'

She had been about to say more, but it simply disintegrated into an incoherent gargle, as Chloe Elizabeth Price doubled over, agony contort across her face, before she collapsed across the floor, tearing at her throat as a sickly foam began to spew from her mouth.

'Chloe!'

She heard the clatter of wood rebounding off the plastered wall, as her father half leapt, half fell out of his seat as her friend lay kicking the empty air like an upturned beetle: out of the corner of her vision, she saw her mother rush forward, before she recoiled with almost the same haste as her hands met the sickening mixture of blood and spit that continued to spread across the floor.

Yet none of it seemed present to Max's ears. Just a distant memory, as she raised her hand, closed her eyes, and forced her to steady herself. To ignore the sight that had just scarred her sight; to forget it would ever exist. Not even as a memory; but a possibility.

It was the only way she could ever hope to stay sane.

* * *

'It'll be a start, I guess - Jesus, Max!'

'Sorry!' Max exclaimed, 'bummer, sorry 'bout that Chloe.'

'It's alright Max,' a controlled tone resounded from over her shoulder, 'it's alright; no harm done. I told you it was a good idea to stop buying glass, Vanessa.'

'I never knew we'd have Ms Butterfingers her for a daughter,' Vanessa sighed, already rising to her feet to assess the damage, even as both Chloe and Max retreated from the rapidly expanding circle of darkness across the sodden carpet.

'Sorry mom,' Max started, 'I'll-'

'Leave it Max,' was the only response that came, 'you've both had a - long day. Why don't you two just head in? Chloe, I assume you'll be staying with us, now - for now, right?'

Chloe only gave a half nod, trying her best to ignore the words that had nearly fought their way loose from Vanessa's lips. Of course no one wanted to acknowledge the fact she could well and truly be around for more than 'a while'; not out of stringent inhospitality, one must understand, but only upon false hope. The vague, incoherent thought that if one never said the terrifying truth; that Chloe Price was now an orphan amidst an unforgiving world, it might somehow be averted.

'I'll get the spare bed,' muttered Ryan, 'Max? Lend a hand?'

'You mind if you give me a second? I just want to check something.'

'Don't let me stop you,' came the reply, 'just as long as you know what you're doing, Max.'

He was not looking for an answer, as he eased himself upright, and for a fleeting moment, Max wondered if age had begun to take its toll upon her father's frame. She had been gone for barely a month, but a month without their daughter about the house is a long time, and the weight of that strain was beginning to show in Ryan's eyes. Max had always harbored the suspicion that her parents were not quite ready to let her fly the nest, and although their concern for her wishes ultimately triumphed over the protective instinct, a small part had always remained; never quite falling into dormancy, as her troubles in Arcadia Bay continued to filter back in small snippets of news of both sorts, from her part in ending Kate's attempt at suicide, and on the other end of the spectrum, her damning accusations of an armed honors student on the Academy grounds.

And now that she was back, she was changed entirely. The Max that had existed before that October morning was gone, and with a town in flames, her return home was understandably less than what Ryan and Vanessa had envisioned.

And they were unable to see that; still amidst the hope that their innocent daughter lay beneath, Ryan and Vanessa only blamed themselves for their apparent inability to spark Max to life once again. The old jokes and games of the evening had been ineffectual, and in their ignorance of her part in the tragedy, they could only believe themselves to be the cause.

Such was the same, human instinct that gripped at Max's own gut. The regret; the fear, and of course, the guilt that was her own to shoulder. Never once did it occur to her that some outer power; some malicious force could be held to fault.

In her mind, it was her own decision. And that knowledge would destroy her, unless she could do something to right that insurmountable wrong. Or, she conceded, in all probability, a thousand little somethings to right the crime upon humanity. It would be the only way she could ever forgive herself.

It was a task that would probably crush her with its uncompromising nature, but she would try nonetheless.

* * *

The kitchen counter provided precious few clues. Aside from the soft patter of liquid dew falling from the line of drying dishes, the surface was immaculate.

Max had already decided that she would refrain from the compulsion to share the disturbance with Chloe; not yet at least, where her parents could catch the brief moment of hysteria one usually exhibits when informed that a close friend had just witnessed one's own traumatic death in a pool of blood only seconds ago in a single possibility, and besides, she wanted, or rather knew, something was to be found.

She could not tell if it was still guilt, or her old inquisitive nature that was at work, prodding her along by this point, but Max was no longer concerned by her motivation, as long as the end result remained a deathless evening.

And impulsive instinct to right a wrong one had the power to reverse had begun to withdraw in favor of logic; logic which, perhaps somewhat blatantly, but nonetheless importantly, stressed in Max's mind that it was rare that one began convulsing and expelling their own vital bodily fluids across the floor without external intervention.

So she searched. And searched, yet nothing would reveal itself to her eyes, until she placed her palms upon the counter; arms taught amidst their full extension as she wracked her mind in frustration, only to withdraw as soon as she did so.

'What's this?' Of course, nobody answered Max, as she leaned down to investigate the gummy surface. Still slick with the excesses of the tap, the water appeared indistinguishable from its cousins across the counter, but to slide her palm across the puddle felt sickening. As if someone had poured syrup upon the tabletop, and only given the briefest of attempts to clean it away before slinking away from the mess.

And yet, it did not have the same consistency as a gel. It was too smooth for sugar, though it's traction with the surface would still put any true sample of water to shame.

'Almost like powder,' she thought to herself softly, recalling the time she had nearly blown Warren's head off with a careless knock of a glass beaker. Then again, Warren was not the kind to take every infraction at it's face value; an untrained lab initiate, like herself and a concoction of several unknown substances pooling together on the table before her eyes seemed too great an opportunity to pass up without an obligatory touch of drama. And if she was in no position to question it's feasibility, all the better for the self professed scientist.

She had almost allowed a half smile to form upon her face at the memory when she managed to wrestle control once again. Warren's fate, like many others of Arcadia Bay, remained all but unknown to her, and unless he had somehow survived entirely unscathed, she was, or at least she told herself that she was, in no position to begin doubting his past antics.

Besides, the more she surveyed the patch, the more confident she was becoming that it was no powder to begin with, but a pill; concentrated so greatly in one small area, it had the appearance of a tablet that had been exposed to water; dissolving a small portion of its structure beneath the caustic touch of the daily drink, to produce a fine paste, before a second splash of liquid had obliterated the last traces of solids within the rouge supplement.

'So,' Max muttered to herself, in quiet triumph as she cleansed her hands of the contaminant, 'we have some pill that nearly kills Chloe when she drank it, and...an-,' the syllable dragged out as the victory drained from the forefront of her mind '- and a fingerprint I just fucked up.'

She was on the cusp of rewinding when she heard it; the rush of air before it was cut off at it's source. A sound not unlike that made by a rodent, scurrying about the darkness, toying with the predator that followed in it's wake, but just as it entered her consciousness, so too did the realisation reach Max's mind that another person could have entered her home.

Alongside the possibility that, for all intents and purposes, that intruder was still present.

After a moment's hesitation, she took a pair rapid of strides over the source, before she realised, far too late, the abhorrent stupidity of her plan.

' _What the hell are you doing Max?'_ She nearly screamed at herself, ' _What are you going to do if you find him? Ask him to leave politely? A man, presuming it was a man of course, who, assuming you have made any accurate deduction so far, has come into your home with the intention to murder your friend, and is therefore probably armed and extremely dangerous, while the closest weapon to your hand is the bloody butter knife from dad's breakfast this morning-'_

Her mind had yet to catch up with her actions, and she had already begun to turn the corner from which the noise had originated from when she realised she was effectively begging for a knife through the throat.

But, to the great disappointment of her curiosity, and the tremendous relief of her neck, there was nothing to be found. Just an unused patch of the tiled space beside one of two doorways to the corridor from which the rest of the house could be accessed, after Vanessa had decided to relocate the trashcan to it's current position adjacent to the fire escape, leaving the aforementioned corner of the kitchen to wallow in it's disuse, for with the alternate path to her residence running into the living room; a room with both a TV and dining table; two vastly important social instruments that the Caulfield kitchen lacked, Max was probably the first to grace it with a human presence in a long time.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Max turned about, and returned to the sink, trying to reassert some form of sense over her burdened mind, all the while remaining blissfully unaware that the window perched at the very end of the corridor that formed the effective spine of the apartment; a window Ryan had made a habit of keeping shut thanks to it's ill state of repair, remained half open.

* * *

Regenus scarcely dared to emit a breath as the girl turned about, unable to pierce the darkness as he held the struggling Simon Henning fast.

'Just stay still,' he cooed softly, though the helmet's vocal distorters produced the words at a growl rather than false encouragement, 'just stay still, and I'll get you out of here.'

Nothing met him but a strangled grunt, as the cultist continued to wriggle against the Guardsman's steel grip. Probably because he, like any being of relative intelligence, was able to see that the Guardsman's sentence had omitted the all important 'out of here to my personal torture chamber where you'll have the choice of answering quickly or losing some teeth'. But as Max disappeared around the corner, so too did Regenus' patience.

'Get moving.'

Henning refused to budge more than a meter.

'I'm getting impatient,' Regenus shot again, 'hurry up, or I'll take your most prized assets and see if they fit down your throat. And it'll be slow. So move, or say goodbye to your fuck-sack.'

'Fuck-sack?' Praesentius sighed in disbelief over the comms, as Regenus uncoupled his blade from the concealed sheath upon his wrist, 'Remind me to never let you handle linguistics from here on out. They call them testicles around here, you idiot.'

'And you'd know all about missing testicles, wouldn't you, Praesentius - hey!'

The man in Regenus' grasp; so easily mistaken for a deer in headlights, had managed to snake his hand from the Guardsman's grip, and amidst the momentary distraction, he had unlatched a syringe from his belt, and slammed it into the Guardsman's leg.

Unfortunately for Henning, he had not accounted for the fact that Regenus was wearing enough carapace plate to pass with ease for a medieval knight, and the fragile point abruptly snapped off, leaving Simon with a blunt syringe, and one irritated murderer before him.

'It's alright,' Regenus sighed, more to himself than the slippery fish in his arms, 'I guess you already served your purpose. Praesentius? What do you think?'

'What do I think of what?'

'Yeah,' Regenus nodded, practically ignorant of the Hunter's words, 'That's what I thought as well. We don't need you. Too much, at least.'

With that, he swung Henning around himself, towards the open window.

The window had not fully retained it's shape since Henning, and more recently, Regenus, had slipped through the impediment, due to a combination of gravity and a loose lock in the window's sliding mechanism that Ryan had yet to address, so Henning did not so much as fly through the opening as Regenus had hoped. Rather, he simply hit the frame hard in the forehead, and crumpled into the ground, groaning in agony.

With a seething rage at the error, Regenus ripped the window open to it's widest possible berth, before he returned to the mewling figure at his feet.

This time, there was no delay, as Henning sailed out into open space.

Only moments later, he hit the concrete below, and lay still and silent as the night.

* * *

'We need to talk about our methods,' Praesentius said, as Regenus climbed back into the van the pair had 'appropriated' three hours earlier, from an unsuspecting driveway on the outskirts of the metropolis the humans knew as Seattle. Regenus, however, did not seem to share the concern of his typically unabashed unconcerned ally.

'I got them out of the house and stopped a threat, didn't I?'

'With a corpse in the street? What the hell did they teach you about collateral?'

Regenus was nearly incredulous as the Hunter's gaze departed the street, to turn upon his own being. Praesentius seemed to have relatively few qualms in regard to the massacre of subjects when the conditions called for his own hand to inflict the butchering, so it was understandably infuriating for the demoted Guardsman to receive a lecture on the values he had entrenched himself in long ago. At least until the Council had stripped him of the right to respect them.

'Collateral that may draw prey to the hunt is acceptable, is it not?'

'Explain.'

'Law enforcement finds the dead little shit tomorrow; evidence points to the fact he was trying to rob the Caulfields and had a slip, am I right? So that means a trip to the police station for them, and that means a lot of time on the street for the grab.'

'And what about the massive blood smear the windowsill? Humans tend to bleed pretty easily, you know?'

'Already wiped it down with Sanctius; traces should be gone within the hour.'

Praesentius sank back into his seat; arms fully extended upon the wheel as he forced himself upright in a chair that was far too small for his armored being. For a long time, they remained, each in thought as they watched the lights of the night flicker in and out of their vision; the last dregs of the day wearing to an end as they sat amid the shadows.

Finally, Praesentius broke the silence.

'Good work, Hunter.'

'Don't call me that, Praesentius. Not until-'

'What's your First Law of the Hunt, Regenus?'

There was a fairly substantial pause before Regenus answered.

'The pack follows the direction of its masters. To the end.'

'Indeed. And I'm instructing you to answer to that name once more, Regenus. That's non-negotiable. I'll sort it out with Emendus when we get back.'

'Aren't we headed back now?'

'No,' Praesentius mused, now at a distance and length from the world, 'we shadow them until Emendus' bunch is ready to make the grab. Then we deliver the package.'

'Delivering that package in a public space at short range isn't going to be easy,' Regenus put in. Strictly speaking, Sedative-112A, or Leniendus as it was more commonly referred to in the Council's militaries, was not designed to be injected into anything with a body mass that fell under a full metric ton. But although Oretus; the unit's irritable Blood-Seer who would have probably laughed in a mixture of disbelief and humor at the humans' Hippocratic Oath before setting fire to the document, had assured the pair that the concentration of their equipment was small enough to avoid a lethal overdose to one of the fragile natives of the world, it remained black and viscous; impossible to mistake for an innocent vial of water, or a recreation substance that while illegal, would have probably still drawn less attention than a syringe filled with what appeared to be the extract of a bog.

Praesentius only confirmed his suspicions as the black helm atop his neck began to rock up and down, as a soft chuckle broke from his voice box.

'It ain't,' Praesentius muttered, with a half grin beneath the helmet, 'that's why it's being passed to the Hunters.'

And with that, Regenus' heart sank. It was, in effect, Praesentius' own little way of stating 'you'. Even so though, the prospect of another hunt was hardly one Regenus was about to pass up: after weeks, or even months at a time cooped up aboard the Outcast Station in orbit; the nerve center of Watch Master Eridinus Taurus' observation efforts over the backwater planet of Earth, the adrenaline was like a drug he knew he would need to survive the next two tours of his penance, before he could finally be rotated back to his Regiment of the 92nd Shadow Guard, and return to the frontlines where he belonged.

'One final little query; you figure out which one of the little minxes Henning was after?'

'Oh aye. Henning slipped something into her drink. Probably hoping he'd be able to snatch her, but, well, she's a bit of a clutz. Split the damn thing, though I really don't know what the hell the idiot was thinking; with no get away vehicle, bastard would have been caught within a day. And put local enforcement on protection alert.'

'He tried to drug her without an extraction plan?' Praesentius had leaned back over to survey his subordinate, and Regenus was ultimately unsure of what he saw in the haggard Hunters' eyes; uncertainty? Concern for a member of the gender he'd developed an intrinsic distrust of since one had violently removed his 'third leg' after too many drinks and a criminal attempt at 'courting'?

Probably the former; Praesentius was not one to forget, even when he was technically in the wrong. If he were an inmate in at a penitentiary, he was the kind that any witness should have feared when he emerged.

It was what made him far too dangerous to take off the frontlines.

'Definitely looked like it.'

'You didn't leave the idiot's fucking drug cocktail over there, did you?'

'Give me some credit, Praesentius,' Regenus grinned, producing the whitish sachet he had swiped from the tabletop only moments after following Henning out the window, albeit, without breaking his neck in the process, 'I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure it's no sweetener. Probably the same shit we're packing.'

'Maybe,' Praesentius muttered, twisting the sachet in his hands experimentally. Unexpectedly, he abruptly brought it up to his nose to take a tentative sniff, before he recoiled in apparent disgust.

'Problem?'

'No,' the Guardsman muttered with sudden distaste for the company he kept, 'just forgot to actually deactivate my damn filters.'

He did not appreciate the short burst of laughter that left Regenus' mouth immediately after the words left his mouth. It was one of those little lapses of recalling he was actually in an armored suit designed to wage war on a world with a corrosive atmosphere; a lapse nearly every Guardsman had made; Regenus included, yet none were willing to admit in the event another their number marred their image with the same misstep. One day, he vowed quietly, with only the slightest trace of humor in his thought, he'd be there to turn the tables on the little shit.

'So?' His hunting partner asked after what seemed a disproportionate amount of time for the nature of their conversation, 'smell anything?'

'Not that I can taste,' Praesentius muttered, even as he emitted a low hiss; his forked tongue flickering back into the recesses of the fanged maw beneath the matted helmet, 'but I don't like the fact he had no extraction plan. Pass your little pick-and-mix crap onto Oretus when you get the chance, and see if he can get it's chemical structure. And you didn't answer my question.'

Even though the helmet was on his head, Regenus looked as if he were caught in the headlights of a rapidly approaching vehicle. Or the gaze of any hungry Makar that did not bear the name of Thax; Praesentius would have to do something about that later. Thax was many things, but a relentless stalker and merciless killer, the unit's overgrown pet wolf was not, and alongside Regenus' flittering mind, he was beginning to wonder if he would have to end up hunting alone after all.

'Which was, um, what again?'

'If I was to head over and break down the Caulfields' door,' Praesentius groaned, already beginning to regret his oath to return the bumbling idiot to the ranks of the Hunters, 'which one would know I was coming and be able to put an axe in my skull?'

'Right, right; I nearly forgot about that. The blue haired one.'

'Price?'

'Bingo; that's the one.'


	5. Old Demons

_Author's note: I really appreciate the advice, Time Dragon. However, as you may see, it's been a little difficult to be writing anything on mass recently, since I've got my exams coming up in a month, so till July comes, I'm afraid the release schedule might still remain at the current snail's pace. Still, I do appreciate your contribution to keeping this story running, and to anyone else following this, any feedback is truly appreciated. Now, back to the hunt at hand._

* * *

If one had asked Maxine Caulfield, or rather 'Max' Caulfield, as any would address her unless one either wished for the immediate reprimand that would intangibly follow the usage of her full name, or the one in question was an officer of the law, under obligation to follow 'protocol', what had transpired at the local station, Max's answer would have been a short one at best.

Probably since she was left under the impression that the men in uniform, or at least the one fresh faced patrolman who had been assigned to debrief her on the last nights events gave little care for her preference of identity, as he continued to address her by her christened name; she would continue to correct him on her name; he would continue to nod in supposed acknowledgement, before then resuming his use of her extended, and pretentious full title.

In fact, Max thought to herself, as she returned to the waiting room, while her father ironed out the final details on the report, half of the audio log would have probably been covered by that disagreement alone. Not that it was necessarily a bad outcome, since any one who would have to slog through the damn recording would have probably given up long before noticing the fact she still had to cover her slight...advantage in determining the events of the prior night.

She had told Chloe about the incident the previous night just as they had turned in, much to her blue haired companion's surprise, but by the end of the late night conference, the pair had remained undecided at best, albeit gravely disconcerted at the potential intrusion as they attempted to earn some much deserved sleep. Of course, that had eluded Max like a devilish wisp of old, as the countless faces of Two Whales continued to dog her every footstep in the shadows, and it had been a restless night at best, for both Max, and Chloe, who had been awakened on numerous occasions by Max's frenzied outbursts, at one point having to restrain her from tumbling off her elevated bed amid one particularly violent onrush of night terrors. But they had endured it together, for not even Max's parents had been informed; although Max had still been attempting to formulate some means of indicating she was no longer the same 'ordinary' girl that had departed for Arcadia Bay a month ago, without getting herself admitted into an asylum while she was at it, that plan had been put on hold as early as daybreak, when a gentle tap on their door had revealed two patrolmen, who had quickly brought their attention to cadaver directly their apartment's windowsill. It had not taken long for them to determine that the rather inept criminal had decided to fly from the Caulfields' apartment, given the rather conspicuous damage done to the aforementioned window, but just as it had emerged, so too did any hope of Max's own wish to immerse her parents in her plight. With a dead man in the picture, doubt and the remote possibility of psychiatric treatment was quickly replaced by the threat of indictment in an already suspicious death.

So, Max had played it as she had learnt to over the past week, or eternity if she allowed herself to indulge in her own little experiments with time; she played dumb; the inquisitive and confused individual asking the questions, until she had finally come to the conclusion that she had probably asked more questions than her designated interviewer, and, on the side, that the cops were even more clueless than she was, with no trace of the strange substance on the kitchen counter to be found on the man; not even a tool kit. For all they knew, the intruder had decided to try an ill-fated attempt at free running up a wall, before gravity had brought him back down to Earth.

And somehow, it seemed quite the stretch to subtly indicate that she had, for some inarticulate reason, decided to take too much of an interest in the kitchen counter to notice a strange, powdered substance that might have had the potential to send a potential victim into a lethal spiral.

Or rather, it was impossible to attempt such, since Max had tried a dozen explanations already, and although each had differed tremendously, from only mild suspicion, to a shrug of disbelief, to a near arrest, none of them exactly fell into any passable definition of success, so by the thirteenth attempt, Max abandoned the endeavor entirely. It seemed that once again, it would fall to her and Chloe to pursue the matter a little further, though as to how far she was willing to push this investigation remained to be see, as she sat cross-legged in the waiting area, appearing to take a peculiarly strong interest in the opposing wall whilst her mind continued to work, tugging her from one argument to another.

After winding up in a psychopath's Dark Room, and watching her friend eat a bullet only hours prior, more than a part of her was begging her to veto the prospect immediately, but Max already knew that she had passed that bridge too long ago to turn back now. Although Chloe was still in her own interview, with her dubious criminal record undoubtedly the cause of the cops' interest, the moment she emerged, Max knew she would be abound with her own theories, if only to give her something to distract herself from the disaster in their wake. It was, after all, Chloe's way of dealing with tragedy; by distancing herself from the madness, externalising the pent up anxiety into action. And then there was the fact it would be a nearly impossible to rewind back to the moment she had decided to impart upon Chloe her most recent brush with death, since the last time she had tried to rewind more than a couple of minutes, she had wound up with a headache the size of Alaska, before greeting the ground with her forehead at high velocity. Subsequently, an attempt to rewind back to the previous evening seemed foolhardy at best, if not downright suicidal.

Besides, given the fact that she had a snowball's chance in Hell of stopping Chloe to begin with, it seemed only logical that Max be there to prevent those 'actions' from involving drugs and guns.

At least, she hoped she would be able to, but there was still a layer of doubt. The week had already proven a strange one, and after witnessing the events that might have transpired the previous night, Max was beginning to wonder if it was safer to simply let the Kraken lurking beneath the cesspit of destiny to lie undisturbed, before she and Chloe could prod it into claiming one of them too soon, again. Chloe's words atop that lighthouse; a one beacon of sanctuary in their youth to the very end of that innocence, still twisted against her belly like a poorly shaped blade, and as her contemplation wore on, Max was quite unable to stop herself from wondering if Chloe's notion of fate was indeed quite accurate: she had earned less than a day since Arcadia Bay's destruction before had Chloe had met another early end. Against every life that she had effectively ended by tearing up that damn butterfly, it was becoming exponentially harder to justify her choices.

Wrought by so many a regret, it was no surprise that she nearly missed the commotion at the police desk until she heard the newest arrival's name.

'...sick bastard. You enjoy Seattle while you still can, Jefferson. Arts teacher like you will fit right in at correction, won't you?'

She could scarcely believe it; she did not want to believe it, but it seemed that if destiny could not claim her friend, it would gladly take her sanity in Chloe's place.

Barely four meters away, Mark Jefferson was in the process of being hauled away from an understandably antagonistic officer at the station's front desk. His pressed suit and shirt were gone; replaced by the unmistakable orange garb of an inmate, but he still seemed to maintain a shred of twisted dignity as he straightened himself upright, and began to walk, until he saw the huddled figure in the corner of the waiting area.

A week past, Max might have averted her gaze, but this time, there was only grim vindication, as she met his stare with an even calmness, betrayed only by the slight twist of her forehead amid her attempts to suppress the fury she felt boiling at her heart.

She could not confront him, of course; the officers would think her mad if she were to try it, for she had to remember that, despite all that the piece of shit had done, he had yet to actually wrong her in the present timeline.

Even so, an eternity seemed to pass before the officer at Jefferson's back seemed to notice his prisoner had stall; traced the psychopath's gaze to it's destination, and roughly shoved him forward once more, muttering some form of loathing beneath his breath that Max had no way of catching.

In fact, there was nearly some kind of twisted joy at the prospect of the madman's confinement that Max struggled to overcome. It was instinctive to prove the better human being, but still there existed that primitive, feral lure of vindication, and it was for that reason Max finally broke off her sight with the man she had once thought worthy of praise, as he rounded the corner, out of sight. Satisfying as it may have been, there simply existed some unspoken, integrated wrong with acknowledging that one registered that satisfaction to be with.

But when she looked up again, her morals quickly fell from the forefront of her mind, as fear emerged once more.

He was still there, never having deviated from his place, as he stood, staring: stock-still like a statue, or worse, one of his countless portraits; a snapshot in time, only this work of the deranged psychopath was bereft of the terrifying prospect of being exposed to the camera lense. This time, he was smiling.

The officer seemed to take notice his prisoner had stalled, and prodded him onwards once again, and once again, they disappeared around the corner.

Max was still trying to determine if the culmination of late nights and her entire muddling of the timeline had finally begun to take it's toll upon her eyes when she felt a familiar pain course through her mind. Sharp, yet it did not crack like a whip, for it refused to abate until it had reached out and touched upon every recess of her conscience. Like a stain, it dug about her skull at a hideous pace, and Max doubled over in agony, clasping and cradling her head, willing the pain to go away, as a thin line of blood began to trickle from her nose.

Her vision blurred amid the spiralling stars and sunrise she had all but grown accustomed to over the last week, but as she writhed and twisted on that couch, she could not help but notice that the familiar face was back where he stood, as a pin dropped to the floor and rang with painful resonance.

The trickle of red had turned to a flood. Half blind, bleeding and almost certainly mad, Maxine Caulfield tumbled out of her seat and ran.

* * *

With some much needed help from a man she unfortunately could not recall the face of, save for a blurred mesh of light, which nearly all had seemed to present itself as within her state of delirium, Max made it to the bathroom, and promptly stumbled for the sink.

It took a good moment for her to get the water running, but once she did, she was able to finally breath, as managed to wipe away a portion of the trail of blood that had already reached her shirt.

'Get it together, get it together, Max,' she nearly screamed at herself, though it only emerged as a weakened shudder even as she shut her eyes, praying for some sense of normality to return to the gift of sight. She could not even make out her own face against the mirror mounted upon above the sink, much less her surroundings before she clasped them tight, willing the agony to depart.

Still it burned, as she tasted another tide of iron welling in her throat.

Max would never know how much time had passed since she had burst into the station's latrines, admitting her life fluid at a far from healthy rate from her nasal cavity, for it was her last instinct in such a situation to reach for the phone to check the four numbers stenciled upon the lock screen, but when she finally straightened up, having recovered some modicum of sight, her anxiety was quick to turn to thought, suspicion, and of course, when panic was thrown into the mixture; that all important pinch of paranoia.

 _Am I really going insane?_ She asked herself, trying in vain to search for any sign in the mirror that would betray the madness beneath her features, _or did I just truly fuck time up? Trapped in a time loop, or God forbid another nightmare._

A door opened behind her, and amid her swimming doubts, she nearly emitted a scream in surprise.

Then, after a moment's hesitation in which her mind caught up with her newly recovered sight, she truly did scream.

* * *

'You're not taking a piss again, are you?'

'What's now? I'm not killing witnesses at least, right?'

'You could be keeping watch.'

'I'm keeping a watch on my waste container, alright? The damn thing is nearly full; I gotta empty this piss bladder somewhere.'

'Down your throat might work,' Praesentius murmured, as he continued to thread the black fiber wire up the ventilation hatch atop the cubicle he had chosen to occupy for the duration of the operation, 'Claudius, please tell me you're getting somewhere'.

'I can only guide this thing as far as you send it,' the data Seer replied into his ear, 'give me another two meters; I see a possible intrusion point.'

'No spinning blades and sparkles, this time I hope?' The Hunter enquired, with a hint of sincerity. He was already on his second data cable after the half-blind Claudius had remotely steered the first one into what appeared on his helmet feed to be a set of rotating, angled blades designed to push air along the primitive ventilation ducts; a system far behind the purification systems integrated into the Council's latrines, but one that was proving highly effective in both breaking military hardware, as well as delivering a painful backlash of electricity to the increasingly irritated Guardsman attached at the tube's end. Not that it was Claudius' fault, of course, Praesentius reminded himself, although he found himself having to do so on an increasingly regular basis: the Data Seer had spent nearly five years plugged into the digital realm, and the poor sod was already technically blind without the correctional filters installed in his retinas. Data blindness was the mark of any veteran Seer, and for his service, Praesentius was willing to extend a fraction of leniency. That is to say, any at all, for it was rare that the Hunter found any worthy of sympathy, most particularly the distracted Regenus, who was shy of his senior's service by just a year, but it could have been a day for all Praesentius cared. In fact, even Emendus did not enjoy the same level of leniency Praesentius extended to the crippled Data Seer, and that leniency seemed to find itself limited to a single electric shock, as the Hunter continued to twist the wire forward, bracing for the inevitable, and an excuse to finally belt out his rage.

'A little further... hold on, engaging fiber connection-' A loud clap resounded directly in his ear, drawing a slight wince from the overly sensitive Hunter, 'we're in. Accessing camera feeds now.'

'Once you tag Price, send the greenlight. Dreamer Two will then move to secure. Timer's rolling, people.'

'On it, Emendus,' Praesentius sighed, allowing himself to hop off the toilet seat upon whihc he had previously perched himself in order to unscrew the ventilation duct, with more than a little apprehension as to whether the porcelain structure would be to take his weight, 'send me the feed, Claudius.'

'Hang in there, lad; little interference on this end-'

'Um, Praesentius?' Even before Regenus had finished speaking, Praesentius knew he had only horrible news to deliver. It was the tone that betrayed him: that dreaded, slightly sing-song tune of a heightened pitch that could only detone misfortune, and Praesentius was not having any of it.

'What now?' He snapped, spinning violently around to face the paper thin surface that divided the stalls they occupied respectively, as though he could see his hunting partner upon the far side, 'you split the bloody bowl in half or what? I stood on this pile of shit and-'

'Company.'

* * *

The first, and probably only, judgement upon as to what on earth had emerged from the cubicle at her back that managed through Max's mind summed up to a wraith. She never even stopped to twist her gaze back for a second glance, as she bolted for the door, but the blurred spectre remained branded upon her sight; a boiling mass of torn, dark fabric enclosing a pair of scarlet eyes, all of which seemed to levitate just so slightly off the ground as it emerged from the most unlikely of cairns.

Of course, if Max had even stopped to consider that she had just seen a shade emerging from a toilet, she might just have realised the lunacy of it all, but after her horrific week of indulging in madness, a ghost seemed trivial at best, and as it reached out at her with a nearly skeletal hand, observation quickly fell from her list of priorities, and she took flight for the door.

The mirror erupted in a shower of shards, barely moments after her legs had begun to move, and instinctively, she ducked her head low, narrowly avoiding a similar blast of porcelain, as another item upon the wall that ran parallel to her side: this time a tile mounted upon the surface, detonated with furious rage.

Unfortunately, Max's luck did not extend to the third time, and bare moments after registering a sharp pain rip across her leg, she hit the floor, tumbling into a tangled heap against the closed door of the bathroom.

The last thing she dared to see, before willing the world as it existed into oblivion, was that gaunt, cloaked ghoul rising up from the ground towards her, it's eroded hand outstretched far beyond its frame, towards her quivering eyes.

She had never thought one of her countless victims, unwilling as their murders may have been, could have returned to harm her in the corporeal form once again. But it had been one strange week, and she was kidding herself if she was to even consider telling the lie that their murders were unwilling. Her choice would be her responsibility to bear alone.

But even ghosts could be surprised, as it's savage embrace came to a staggering halt, and then abruptly catapulted back in time.

* * *

Groaning as she dragged herself upright, Max halted only a moment to glance beneath the stores, ensuring that the specter no longer resided in her sight. The view that greeted her was less than satisfactory, for she witnessed not one, but rather two pairs of darkened greaves set upon the floor of the stall she had watched the specter emerge from. For a moment, Max was tempted to try to discern why on earth a ghost would have need of a toilet for, since the greaves were in fact pointed in the wrong direction to the door, but caution prevailed, and she hurriedly reached for the door handle, hoping to go unnoticed before that pang of pain seared through her tight once again.

'Dammit,' she whispered, peering down to assess the damage. She did not quite understand what on earth had convinced her that a quick rewind would undo the damage she had wrought upon herself, but if she could have kept an IED, courtesy of one Warren Graham's direction, through one of her jumps in time, there was little to have said that the same could not be said for a cut.

In fact, a cut seemed to be quite an understatement, considering the fact that the circle of red that had engulfed her left thigh had grown to the size of a fully shaped CD, alongside that little detail that the said disk was still growing by the second. It surprised Max so much so that she simply gawked at the clotting fluid for so long that by the time she had looked up again, the spectre was back in front of her; this time, an expression of surprise holding it's features taut like a deer caught in headlights, before the familiar anger of the last time took over.

Another rewind, and Max, now growing slightly faint as she fumbled for the doorknob with a blood-slickened palm, finally managed to escape the bathroom from hell, as she half fell out into the doorway with the resounding crack of dull metal. Amid her groggy attempt to distance herself from the ghoul, she managed to slam her knee with uncomfortable force against the same door that had obstructed her plight, undoubtedly alerting her tormentor once again, and she was on the verge of returning herself to the past one last time for fear that the red eyed memory barge through the entryway at any moment, when she realised she was not alone.

'Holy sh-'

It took her a couple of seconds to realise that the open mouthed cop was in fact directing his disbelief at her own self, though if she had a mirror, Max would have probably understood the breach in protocol. Her hands intermixed with her life fluid, and smeared upon her clothing, it would have been a fair presumption to say that she had been attacked by a bear en route to the lavatory.

'Are you alright?'

'Not exactly,' she said, as the uniformed man dropped to haul her up, which he did so, but without the gravest amount of concern for her damaged limb, 'there's-'

She bit off the end of her remark amid the latest response from her savaged nerves. It was not agony: there were far worse wounds one could sport, and compared to pounding that had wracked her mind, it could have nearly been written off as a pin-prick. But to say it was nothing at all, stoic as it might have been, would have been a lie.

'What the hell happened to you?'

'Something,' Max stammered, 'something was-'

It was surprise, rather than the dry palm, that cut off her next words.

'Sh, sh, sh, sh, sh,' he whispered, reaching behind his back as he held Max fast with surprising force, 'it's okay. It's okay.'

Max did not agree, and, perhaps inadvertently out of panic after already two close encounters with psychopaths at the police station, kicked the metal door, propelling herself back into her assailant, though it seemed to have little noticeable effect, for the man was a rock as he produced the clear syringe.

'Damnit, hold still!' he snapped, waving it before her eyes as if it was somehow meant to have put her at ease, like a half chewed bone thrown before a well trained dog, 'otherwise, this might hurt. A lot-'

What followed next undoubtedly hurt a lot. In fact, Max wondered it there were any sensation to rival what transpired as those fateful words left the policeman's mouth, a mere second before his head exploded. It was not an uncontrolled detonation; she most certainly would have lost it if the entirety of the would-be kidnapper's face was plastered upon her own in it's liquid form, but she felt the impact rock his form, and as the weight in his hand disappeared, she had managed to turn ever so slightly, to catch a glimpse of the now red wall at her back, before the warm corpse had tumbled backwards; his forehead now marred by a remarkably even hole the size of a plum, and with the entire rear section of his head replaced by a few matted chunks of broken skull and sinew.

The ghost was back; now standing in the corridor, except that now, a sleek barrel had filled that outstretched palm. One that was now pointed directly at her own head.

Then, against all belief, it began to speak.

'Are you okay?'

Somehow, Max failed to find the words necessary to convey the fact that after witnessing her deranged art teacher, enduring a titanic migraine, getting hit by shrapnel courtesy from the said shade, and nearly throttled and drugged by an alleged cop, 'okay' could not have been further from the truth. Nor could she sum up the courage to voice her opinion of the lunatic inquest, but that might have had something to do with her 'rescuer's' voice sharing more than a few qualities with the Jigsaw Killer's, after one had thrown it through the manipulations of a voice changer.

Needless to say, Max was not quite prepared to take the spectre's reassurance at it's face value, but as she turned to run, events quickly spiralled out of control: far more so than even the ordinary day with Maxine Caulfield, what with her powers on boot, when the blast of gunfire off to her right threatened to deafen her entirely.

Two more men in uniform had rounded the corner, to find a girl covered in blood, and one of their number dead on the floor with some malignant spirit on the loose, and evidently decided that hot lead would be the answer to all their problems.

The spectre, to its credit, did not disappoint. She never saw, nor heard the shots, but barely a second later, and both men had been thrown to the ground by a seemingly non-existent force, with one man clasping a gaping hole in his chest, while the other screamed at the shortened stump that was his right hand, hoping beyond hope that his simple refusal to accept it would will it back into existence.

And despite the onslaught, it seemed virtually intact, albeit winded, as it staggered to the side, placing a hand it's chest.

And then every thought of it's invulnerability disappeared, when another man appeared at his back: in front of Max, hefting a shotgun at hip level as he depressed the trigger, and sent a shower of lead into the ghost's back.

The figure crumpled, and hit the ground with a resounding thud.

For a moment, no one moved. Then the officer seemed to register his two wounded allies upon the ground; the girl hugging the wall, and the corpse at her feet.

Another blast, and the shrieks of the handless man disappeared into a mindless gurgle.

Then the barrel was turned to Max.

* * *

It was, for all intents and purposes, a disaster. A chaotic, crazed and practically aimless slaughter, as policemen darted out of their office, not quite certain as to who the enemy was, whilst traitors in their very midst drew weapons of every caliber from concealed bags and desks, emptying hungry clips into the backs of their supposed allies with every passing second. In the car park, the officer manning the booth had stood in mild shock as the crack of gunfire reached the little outpost, taking his eyes off the vehicle outside his station for a fatal moment as the driver produced a sawn-off shotgun, and turned the abode into an entangled, red mess. In the armory itself, a patrolman, not quite knowing who on earth posed the threat to his well being, fired in a state of panic, striking a fellow officer, and leading all others present to the conclusion that he himself was one of the attackers before gunning him down in a similar fit of survival.

And, at the very center of it all, was a terrifically irritated Praesentius.

'Be advised, Regenus is down! Say again, Regenus is down! Where the hell is Price? Send, over!'

'We're working on it,' was the only reply Claudius could give, 'you got one contact on your right; shotgun. Recommend-'

'He's down. Anything else?'

'Multiple contacts rolling on your position, six o'clock. Count three-'

'Two.' The Hunter snapped back, as the pistol in his hand discharged once more, hungry for blood, 'One...Clear right. I'm moving the lead foot. ETA on extract?'

'Second team inbound in three cycles,' said Emendus, 'just hang tight, assume a defensive position and hold.'

'Praesentius; Regenus' life signs are spiralling. Stabilize, copy?'

'One thing at a time!' Praesentius roared, emptying the spent magazine onto the floor as the latest threat to his existance hit the ground with enough holes in him to send him on to the Great Father for judgement, 'I gotta get the little shit first. How the hell did they find us?'

'Maybe not 'you', as to say, but Price … well, she's not incognito, is she?'

'For her sake, she better be,' the Hunter panted, as he hauled his still brother-in-arms across the hallway, into a depression in the wall that one of his initial explosives had made in the pitiful human structure early into the firefight, 'she better be well hard to fucking find, because I might just kill her on good principle when I find the little bitch. Alright, Claudius, what've I got?'

'Multiple seal breaches along the back of the suit; heavy blood loss coagulating in the-'

'Two shots of Aspera Curius, half a bottle of sealant!' Oretus shouted, overriding the data-seer's analysis, 'and check his fucking hip for that augment: did the damn thing flare again?'

'Checking, checking. I see blood; a shit load of blood, and fuck all; you can see this shit, Oretus, so you tell me!'

'Synching into your mission feed; looks good. Just get him the shots.'

Spinning around to check for targets, and finding nobody in sight but the half dazed girl that Regenus, had saved from the first bloodied cultist, Praesentius tore the syrettes from the aid kit strapped to his leg, pinning their barbed tips deep into his hunting partner's side with careless abandon. It was only then that he realised his error, and he turned about with savage speed, before he proceeded to lash the brown haired lass across the cheek with the hardened butt of the pistol in his grip, with far too much force, and unconcealed relish.

'Was that really necessary?'

'Anything standing is a threat, Emendus,' the Hunter retorted, 'she ain't dead, but she ain't gonna shoot me, is she?'

'She might have reason to now.'

'What, doe eyes? Come on, give me some credit; just tell me where Price is-'

There was more, but Praesentius never finished his sentence, as a bright light flashed once in his sight. Then the tiled floor: that disgusting light beige that looked the culmination of shit and piss that humans tended to pass off as a bearable decoration, rushed up to meet his eyes, before he rolled over, alongside the crippled Guardsman to whom he had tended, watching the sunless sky of concrete, and false light.

* * *

'Praesentius? Praesentius?' Emendus was nearly livid as they raced down streets of downtown Seattle as best they could, 'Damnit, respond.'

'Mission camera is still transmitting,' Claudius' voice crackled down the comms, 'but...transmission indicating helmet seal breach. Possible head trauma.'

'How far out are we?'

'Two point five cycles-'

'Speed up, then; make it one.'

'I'd love to,' Adrentius sighed, as he spun about from the driver's seat, 'but the transit lanes are fucking jammed, Emendus; I don't think we'll be able to make in the vehicle.'

'Estimated bleed out time?'

'Their internal stabilization protocols are still functioning,' Oretus informed him, holding on for dear life as Adrentius took them over another bump, even though the acolyte was only traveling at a civil speed in heavy traffic, 'anything over fifteen cycles without actual triage would be getting dangerous; we'd run the risk of death or permanent damage-'

'Emendus?' Claudius broke in again, 'Emendus, I don't mean to detract from our, um, situation with the Hunters, but, well, check the feed.'

'What the hell could...oh.'

The slightly pixelated image at the far left corner of his helmet's digitalised display steeled the Guardsman's heart with a vengeance, as a familiar face loomed beneath the few remaining fluorescent lights that continued to illuminate the shattered corridor. A familiar face atop a gaunt figure, bearing a black revolver in unfamiliar hands.

'Oretus?' he called, extending a single digit to the comm piece, tucked beneath the chin of his helm, 'you said they have fifteen cycles?'

'Affirmative. We deviating?'

'Enter holding pattern at the station entry point; contingency one has greenlight. Safeties off, I repeat, go to contingency one now!'

* * *

'Chloe?'

'What'd you without me, Max? Hell, your leg-'

'It's fine,' she responded, forgetting the stupidity of it all as Chloe's hand dropped beneath her arm and guided her to her unsteady feet, 'it's fine. Let's just get outta here.'

'Right behind you, Max. Fuck, man, what is that anyway?'

'I don't know,' Max stuttered, turning about to eye the wraiths laid out upon the ground, strangely laid out as if they were both at some measure of peace, 'But this has been one, fucking crazy week.'

'No shit,' Chloe returned, still gawping as her eyes connected with Max's would-be-assailant, and the clean hole she had put through his forehead, 'shit; I never-'

'It was self-defense Chloe. It was us or him.'

With some belated realisation, Chloe realised she was still holding the guilty weapon, and she moved to holster the pistol before she stopped, and eyed the scorched barrel.

'Fuck, I didn't know, I just saw the gun and-'

'You haven't seen some of the shit I've seen, Chloe,' Max implored her, desperate to drag her friend back to the present, as the gunfire drew closer, and a corpse fell into the corridor ahead as lead bleeding heat streaked through the space the man had previously occupied, 'they would have killed us, if they had the chance. But Chloe, we really need to go, like right now!'

'Right, right on it, Max. Let's get you home.'


End file.
